Introductory element: Russia will change the procedure for investigating utility accidents

It is planned to allow regional authorities to investigate the causes of communal accidents — such amendments proposed by the Ministry of Construction were approved by the Cabinet of Ministers. Currently, commissions consisting of representatives of municipalities, resource supply organizations and Rostechnadzor are investigating the causes of the emergency. The involvement of the regional authorities in this process should minimize the number of errors in the conclusions of the commissions, the initiators of the amendments believe. But experts doubt that the regions, which are often the indirect culprits of accidents, will be able to be objective and impartial without investing enough money in the modernization of public infrastructure. Whether the new procedure for determining the causes of accidents will be effective is described in the Izvestia article.

How will utility accidents be investigated

The procedure for investigating accidents at utility facilities may change. The amendments developed by the Ministry of Construction were approved by the government commission on legislative activity, a source in the Cabinet of Ministers told Izvestia.

Currently, the procedure for investigating accidents in the housing and communal services sector is fragmented, said Ekaterina Kosareva, managing partner of the VMT Consult analytical agency. Formally, they are conducted by commissions established at the level of local governments in conjunction with resource supply organizations and supervisory authorities. If an accident affects people's safety or causes serious environmental damage, the prosecutor's office and Rostechnadzor are involved in the process.

"However, in practice, there are no uniform standards: in one region, the initiator may be the city administration, in another — the service provider himself, who draws up the primary act," she said. — As a result, approaches to damage control and assessment of consequences vary greatly. Hence the gap in statistics, and the possibility of interpreting [the causes of the accident and the damage caused] in favor of stakeholders.

The bill assumes that the government will now approve the rules for investigating accidents on water supply and sanitation networks, explained Vladimir Gruzdev, Chairman of the Board of the Russian Bar Association.

— Regional executive authorities will have the right to participate in these investigations, with the possibility of transferring this function to local governments. The amendments are proposed to enter into force on March 1, 2026," he said.

According to the expert, the changes should improve the accuracy of determining the causes and forecasting accidents in the housing and communal services sector.

— This approach will make it possible to more effectively develop measures to prevent and eliminate emergencies, which will be included in investment programs, including the modernization of municipal infrastructure. At the same time, the adoption of the bill will not increase the costs of regulated organizations and, therefore, will not lead to an increase in tariffs," added Vladimir Gruzdev.

The materials for the meeting of the government commission emphasize that the actual accident rates at public infrastructure facilities differ from the forecast ones — "in particular, in 2024 there were about 9 thousand accidents at housing and communal services facilities."

The initiative to approve a unified accident investigation procedure at the federal level has a right to exist and does not raise fundamental objections from water supply and sewerage organizations, said Dimitri Budnitsky, head of regulatory and analytical work at Rosvodokanal Group.

"If the government gets the authority to approve the accident investigation procedure, we consider it necessary to work out its content in detail, primarily with the participation of the industry community," he stressed.

The main requirement, according to him, is to establish a transparent and fair procedure for identifying the circumstances of the incidents. The organization operating the water supply and sanitation system, that is, the local water utility, must have authority during the investigation.

"The investigation mechanism should also include the mandatory participation of the contractor, supplier and manufacturer of pipes, representatives of municipal authorities, as well as qualified experts independent of these parties," Dmitry Budnitsky added.

What are the problems with utility networks?

More than half of the engineering networks in the country are in poor condition today, Alexander Yakubovsky, a member of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services, told Izvestia.

— This is an objective problem, and it can only be solved by two key factors. First, it is necessary to increase the pace of modernization of the municipal infrastructure," he said. — But it is equally important to increase the efficiency of spending each budget ruble — federal and regional funds that are used to upgrade networks.

In this area, according to the deputy, "transparent and understandable rules of the game should be formed that will allow attracting private capital."

— We are talking about concession agreements and other forms of public-private partnership, — Yakubovsky explained. — But it is important that they are built according to fair principles: when really problematic and worn-out facilities are upgraded with the participation of investors, and not only the most liquid assets are transferred, as it often happened before.

Accidents most often occur on utility networks of water utilities, said the expert of the Popular Front project. Analytics" Pavel Sklyanchuk. Spot work is being carried out to eliminate the gap and restore the supply of resources, and the analysis of the causes of the incident often boils down to "the human factor and does not provide objective information about the causes of emergencies and their prevention."

"For example, sewer blockages can be caused by the dumping of foreign objects by owners, and pipes burst underground due to construction work on the surface," he said. — Water pollution often occurs due to the unaccounted-for ingress of industrial wastewater into a centralized wastewater disposal system. Therefore, the amendments proposed by the Ministry of Construction are designed to protect water supply and sewerage organizations from being made extreme in all cases.

The amendments, according to the expert, will help to pull water utilities out of distress by including investment programs in their tariffs that reduce the likelihood of accidents on water supply networks.

Reforming legislation in the housing and communal services sector in the field of water supply and sanitation is an urgent topic, agreed Sofya Lukinova, head of the Legal Department of VMT Consult.

"According to Rosstat, 44% of water supply networks require replacement, and the deterioration of municipal infrastructure facilities is increasing every year," she noted. — Instead of dealing with the consequences of accidents, it is necessary to modernize these facilities and make major repairs. But in conditions of extremely low financing of the industry, housing and communal services enterprises mainly support the infrastructure and work out emergency calls.

Will the amendments help

The new draft law on the procedure for investigating the causes of accidents on water supply and sanitation networks is a step in the right direction, Alexander Yakubovsky believes. It will make it possible to more accurately determine the causes of incidents, form a unified investigative practice, and use this data when planning investment programs.

"But the long—term result will depend on how consistently we can combine sound regulation with real investments in infrastructure modernization," the parliamentarian added.

There are many problems in the investigation of accidents now, Ekaterina Kosareva emphasized.

— Firstly, it is not always possible to estimate the scale of the disaster due to the hidden underground infrastructure, — the specialist explained. — This requires special diagnostic equipment worth millions of rubles, which also needs maintenance.

If the infrastructure has been repeatedly transferred from one contractor to another, it is likely that some of the documentation for individual sections of the network will be lost. Hence the problems with assessing their condition.

— In addition, responsible persons may delay the investigation in favor of interested parties. For example, until the closure of the contractor company is completed, and then there will be no one to ask for damages," Ekaterina Kosareva believes. — Companies can also use contradictions in the regulatory framework to interpret the circumstances of the accident in their favor to reduce the amount of compensation payments.

The new procedure is designed to solve some of the problems related to the investigation of the causes of accidents. It is assumed that regional authorities will receive more powers in organizing investigations and will be able, for example, to stop situations when municipalities and service providers agree among themselves on the results of the investigation of the causes of accidents.

— This makes sense if, for example, a housing and communal services company owns a thermal power plant, and the city heating networks belong to the municipality, — the expert emphasized. — The new order should ensure transparency. Although in fact, if control and reporting procedures are not tightened, companies and municipalities will still be able to agree among themselves.

The risks may also manifest themselves in a situation where the potential cause of the accident is insufficient financing for infrastructure modernization from the region, experts believe. In this case, instead of the expected increase in interest in the transparency of the investigation process and obtaining objective data, there is a possibility of encountering an unbiased investigation.