YEKATERINBURG, February 22. /TASS/. The mayor’s office in Salekhard - Russia’s only city on the Polar Circle, will organize ecology activities in 2017, head of the city’s administration Ivan Kononenko told TASS on Wednesday.

"The city will organize twelve ecology actions to clean the territory, the water and forest areas from illegal waste disposals," he said. "We shall plant new trees."

"Salekhard, like any other city, of course faces ecology problems, but the administration is doing everything possible to solve them," he continued. "For example, we are now reconstructing the sewage treatment facilities."

In 2016, he continued, the city decided to engage in activities aimed at preserving the environment, during which 4,000 cubic meters of waste was removed, and about 900 new trees were planted.

"We have a special service monitoring the environment," the official said.

Authorities of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District told earlier they would allocate almost 300 million rubles for the environment issues in 2017. During the Year of Ecology the region will have about 70 actions, including to clear the Arctic rivers’ shores, to close old wells and to have big cleaning on the islands Belyi and Vilkitsky in the Kara Sea.