Russia's Lovely but Troubled Lake Baikal
7/27/99
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Russia's lovely but troubled Lake Baikal
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: July 27, 1999
Byline: Patrick Lannin
BAIKALSK - Let your eyes sweep over the glittering blue vastness of
Russia's Lake Baikal at the heart of Siberia in eastern Russia.
Take in the crystal-clear depths of the world's deepest and oldest
fresh water lake; enjoy the forests creeping down from the high hills
which ring the shore and allow your gaze to rest on the soaring
chimneys pumping stinking smoke into the sky.
If you notice something wrong with this version of paradise, you are
not mistaken - there really is a hulking grey complex of chimneys,
pipes and squat concrete buildings planted in one of the most
beautiful places in the world.
30-YEAR-OLD PROBLEM STILL WAITING FOR SOLUTION
In a masterful piece of Soviet planning, the Baikalsk pulp and paper
mill was built 33 years ago at the southern tip of Lake Baikal, a
unique treasure of nature which harbours 1,500 species of animals and
plants, including a type of fresh-water seal found only here.
Environmentalists, politicians and international organisations are
still trying to find a way to stop the mill fouling the pure waters of
the lake without causing the economic collapse of the town of
Baikalsk.
It is one of the former Soviet Union's many factory towns, created
solely because the factory was created, and whose life is intertwined
with that of the plant.
"It is an ecological catastrophe that has lasted 33 years and it is
only getting worse," said Roman Pukolov, the Baikal coordinator for
environmental action group Greenpeace.
"The south part of the lake is getting into a catastrophic state. The
balance is being destroyed," he said.
He was speaking as he sat next to one of the pools where partially
cleaned waste water from the plant is stored before it is sent gushing
into the depths of the lake.
The water is a dull and murky dark green, slightly smelly and a stark
contrast to the pristine clarity of the lake.
DIOXINS AND DEAD SEALS
"We understand that we cannot close the factory tomorrow," said
Anatoly Mogilevich, the head of the regional committee of environment
protection, based in Irkutsk, the closest city.
He has been involved in trying to protect the lake for 11 years and
said the effluent from the mill spreads over an area of around seven
to eight km (five miles) from the shore.
Maybe not much when you consider that the lake stretches out into the
distant horizon over a length of more than 480 km (300 miles) but
Mogilevich said the pollution was slowly but surely spreading.
Liquid from waste products stored at the plant also seeped into the
subsoil and drained into the lake, he said.
This meant that during the winter, the water nearest the shore did not
freeze, as this waste was hotter.
Mogilevich said a key danger was a build up of cholororganic and
sulphurorganic compounds, which can in the long term get into the food
chain, going from microbes to fish, then to the indigenous seal known
as the nerpa, and eventually to humans.
Pukolov said dioxins, the poisonous chemicals which caused a recent
food scare in Belgium, were also escaping into the lake and affecting
the wildlife.
Dead seals have been washed up on the shores of the lake, although
research has given no definitive explanation as to why they died.
As well as the chemical pollutants, the plant is definitely a blot on
the beautiful and wild landscape.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS WANT CHANGE
Environmentalists would like the plant either to shut or change its
method of production so that it can become a closed manufacturing
process that would end the need for it to suck water from the lake and
emit waste waters back into it. Another idea is to convert production
into something more environmentally friendly, such as the manufacture
of furniture.
But such changes take money, and the management of the plant has not
been keen to make large investments.
There would also be a reduction in the workforce, which saw job cuts
after the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.
The plant still provides some 3,000 jobs, vital for the welfare of the
17,000 people in Baikalsk.
Like many other Soviet factory towns, the plant also provides heating
and owns most of the municipal facilities such as a hotel, sports
ground and a skiing centre.
Greenpeace's Pukolov recently helped organise a special seminar to
discuss ways that jobs could be provided by starting businesses not
dependent on the plant.
The seminar was a departure from Greenpeace's earlier tactics of
trying to block the plant's waste pipes, hanging banners from the
factory's chimneys or calling for its closure.
Although the ideas presented at the seminar were worthy, such plans as
rabbit farming or berry growing hardly seemed likely to provide the
same volume of employment as the mill.
Encouraging tourism was also an idea and one that is constantly
suggested given the outstanding natural beauty of the area. However,
the infrastructure is decrepit and would not cope with a flood of
demanding tourists from Russia or the West.
LOCAL PEOPLE WORRIED
The World Bank, UNESCO - which has listed Baikal as a world heritage
site - and the European Union's TACIS programme are all trying to
solve the pollution problem and find jobs for locals who remain
worried about their fate.
"We live in terror of them closing that factory," said Nina Kazak, 62,
who has lived in Baikalsk ever since it opened. "Where would we go?"
she said.
"On the one hand it's terrible that the Baikal lake is hurt but on the
other we have to ask 'What about us'?" she said.
She conceded that the factory did cause a terrible smell but
maintained that nobody had died or fallen ill due to pollution.
BAIKAL LIVES ON AS PROCESS OF CHANGE SLOW
The mayor of Baikalsk, Ivan Panchenko, who used to work for the paper
factory, was cautious, saying the problem was one for the government
in Moscow to solve rather than local authorities.
"There are various options being studied and the quicker the question
is solved at government level, the better," he said.
Such words frustrate environmentalists, who want change to come
quicker.
They have already taken court action to close the plant, but so far
with little success.
The government eventually passed a law on Baikal, regulating the
activities that can be carried out there.
Meanwhile, the sun sinks over the shimmering waters of the vast lake,
the odd swimmer braves its icy cold but invitingly clear waters and
the muted hums and whirrs from the paper factory are the only sounds
that disturb the silence.