One water

Environmentalists criticize the targeted Baikal protection program for lack of specifics

The territories adjacent to Lake Baikal will not have normal socio-economic development without a complete shutdown of the local pulp and paper mill, which resumed its work by order of the government. This statement was recently made public by ecologists from the Russian representative office of Greenpeace after analyzing the draft concept of the federal target program “Protection of Lake Baikal and the socio-economic development of the Baikal natural territory.” The concept of the Federal Target Program was developed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (Ministry of Natural Resources) on behalf of Dmitry Medvedev and received no less harsh criticism from the “greens” than the January order of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which authorized the “restart” of the plant. According to the head of the Baikal Greenpeace program, Roman Vazhenkov, the target program does not contain the most important thing - clearly defined measures for the repurposing or liquidation of the BPPM and the development of the single-industry town of Baikalsk, the special status of which, by the way, was explained by local authorities and the owners of the plant as the need to resume the operation of a dangerous enterprise.

In their conclusion, ecologists united in the coalition “For Baikal!” make it clear that in its current form it is pointless to adopt the Federal Target Program, since it does not answer any specific question related to the development and arrangement of the Baikal territories and the protection of the lake itself. “The concept only schematically speaks of the main task - the protection of Lake Baikal. From its text it follows that such activities will be limited to scientific research, leaving specific environmental work without due attention,” Greenpeace concludes. At the same time, it is obvious that the main forces of environmental services should be devoted to neutralizing the harm caused to the lake by the recently resumed operation of the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill. However, the concept says practically nothing about the present and future of the plant.

Let us recall that the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill resumed its work after on January 13, 2010, Prime Minister Putin signed a government decree “On amending the list of activities prohibited in the central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory.” At that time, the plant had been idle for two years - in 2008 it suspended operations, faced with a claim from Rosprirodnadzor, which required the owner to comply with environmental legislation, and also could not withstand the installation of a closed water circulation system, which did not allow the enterprise to produce competitive viscose cellulose

According to Roman Vazhenkov, the resumption of the plant’s operation has already led to new large-scale discharges of harmful chemicals into Baikal. For example, last Friday the results of an examination of lake water samples taken by specialists from the Limnological Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences became known. Scientists have found that the concentration of hazardous pollutants in BPPM wastewater exceeds established limits. “Dangerous poisons were found in the water, which are strictly prohibited from being dumped,” Mr. Vazhenkov noted in a conversation with a Vremya Novostei correspondent.

The Greenpeace representative is convinced that the problem of developing the Baikal territories can only be solved if the BPPM is closed. At the same time, he does not understand why the concept does not contain a word about the socio-economic development of Baikalsk. In his opinion, the owners of the plant will continue to rely on the status of a city, prolonging the life of a dying enterprise, if the economy of Baikalsk is not diversified.

“In the end, the most concrete thing in this project is the amount of money that should be allocated for extremely vague purposes. And these amounts are quite large,” noted Roman Vazhenkov. It is not yet clear how much the Baikal Federal Target Program will cost the federal budget; the draft program includes two financing options - 70 million 714 thousand rubles. and 112 million rubles. The ecologist is convinced: both for Baikalsk and for the lake itself, a federal target program is simply necessary, but its current version requires serious revision: “The “greens” have already submitted their expert proposals to the government.

Vyacheslav KOZLOV