Recently some mass media agencies, news agencies and news portals continue to spread misinformation stating that Sumgait is one of the most polluted cities in the world, based on biased information from American Blacksmith Institute report, published in 2007.
The sources that most news agencies are basing is Blacksmith Institute which is a member of the Global Alliance "Pollution and Health", dealing with the problems of environmental pollution in the country, monitoring, inventory and control of pollution sources at particular risks.
In clarifying the attitude of experts about possible purposeful misrepresentation on spreading misinformation about environmental pollution in Sumgait city Mr.Rovshan Abbasov, the representative from Baku office of the organization said that the reports of the Institute published until 2007 had formulaic repetition, referring to the superficial studies of about 15-20 years ago without conducting a new monitoring.
Majority of local and international news agencies and websites spreading this false information related to the environmental conditions of the city, formed false opinion in world public that does not reflect the truth about Sumgait city.
Emphasizing the significant improvement of ecological environment of Sumgait city in the last 10 years, Rovshan Abbasov expressed that in regard to this issue, the written notice was sent to the management of the central office of American Blacksmith Institute, and the response received from New York office was provided to "Azerikimya" PU.
In response, it was expressed that "Blacksmith Institute published its report on environmental risks of Sumgait city last time in 2007. This report is already out of date. Therefore Blacksmith Institute is not responsible for the information disseminated at the print media and at the internet sites of Azerbaijan stating that Sumgait is one of the leading polluted cities. By posting these materials, print media, at least, had to point out that this information is of 2007".
Rovshan Abbasov said that in near future Blacksmith Institute will provide monitoring in Sumgait city and subsequent reports will be based only on the results of the latter monitoring.
It should be noted that the Global Alliance on Pollution and Health, which is a member of Blacksmith Institute and "Azerikimya" PU has started joint cooperation on pilot project "Program on identifying and assessing the toxicity of contaminated areas with potential impact to human body". To identify the areas relevant to the subject of the project, a working group from the experts of "Azerikimya" PU and the Office of Environment was formed and it was decided to clean and renovate the areas covering water-distribution points of "Organic Synthesis" Plant. The monitoring and evaluation works are already under progress at the site.