Will the Lake "The Year of Baikal" will survive?

The leadership of the Irkutsk region announced the coming year by the “year of Baikal” and invited the federal tops to support this initiative, and the tops nodded favorably.

"The Year of Baikal" is a capacious concept and can be filled with different content.

Here, for example, is the heading in the press : "Baikal under guardianship. Modernization of BAM and Trans -Siberian Railway - Railways." And they knock on the sleepers kilometers of praise to the "environmental undertakings" of the transport state corporation, the functions of which the protection of nature did not have a hitherto. Translated from the Orwell language, this means that the State Duma issued a special law, “temporarily” (until 2025) allowing to build a “trunk infrastructure” without environmental examination, without agreement with the development plans and without any discussion with residents. Along Lake Baikal, the Russian Railways also received a nominal permission to bring down the forest for these tasks. The law was adopted, but the loud scandal forced the corporation to sign the plans of "compensatory environmental activities" with each Baikal subject of the Federation, not regulated by any laws. And now all the court media are excitedly praise the "environmental undertakings" of Russian Railways. Russian Railways is not going to dwell on what has been achieved and lobbying for changes in the Baikal legislation, extending the indulgence to crap along the highway forever. At the same time, a piece drank on the guarded shore of the lake is the most innocent of current initiatives to weaken the protection of Baikal.

In a sense, the “year of Baikal” has already begun, and this is rather a year of arbitrariness leading to the degradation of the lake. More than a year ago, in September 2019, President Putin gave the government an instructions on how to protect Baikal and fulfill the UNESCO Convention on the World Heritage, but they remained unfulfilled by this time. The President’s control department is still trying to figure out how officials managed to make up and soap the dozen specific instructions.

Meanwhile, there is nothing surprising here - Baikal is not managed by the government (which has recently created a high commission for this), but a small office on the cutting of the budget: the project office of the federal project "Lake Baikal Lake" of the national project "Ecology". The initial task of the office is to divide the money of the national project between influential organizations and beautifully report on the achievement of the planned results. Most of the money is scheduled for treatment facilities and the elimination of the waste on the coast of the Baikal Pulp and Little Plant (BCCB), as well as the production of artificially grown fry of the omul and sturgeon.

To manage Baikal in the Ministry of Natural Resources, a profile department of protected areas and the Baikal natural territory was created, but the real administration of the Baikal problem was transferred to the waste department where it is non -core and no one needs. Since until recently, the “national projects” were a sovereign superior, it seemed logical to the officials to write Baikal in waste. Naturally, the waste department that flounders in garbage reform does not understand Belmes in Baikal, and therefore almost all Baikal issues are outsourcing in the Baikal project office, which is not the federal executive body, but a temporary non -state education.

Any order to solve the key problems of Lake Baikal, given to the minister, at least the president, at least the prime minister, slides into the project office, who has neither authority nor qualifications to do this. The task of the office is to spend the money of the national project on time so that no one is imprisoned for this. From his first steps it turned out that the Baikal environmental legislation interferes with the most work, which does not allow to quickly spend money "for ecology." For example, the treatment plants on the shores should clean the water to Baikal purity, and this requires special non -standard approaches to design and implementation of projects. It is impossible to build these sewers on the "unnecessary natural territories", where the natural flora and fauna are still preserved, that is, great efforts must be made to select the site, etc. etc.

The Baikal project office found its niche - he headed and coordinated the movement for the weakening of the Baikal legislation, which is so prevented from spending state funds on "environmental projects". He began with "norms of permissible impacts on the unique ecosystem of Lake Baikal", which made the "excess" requirements for the concentrations of pollutants in the discharges of the treatment facilities. Fortunately, scientists and social activists stood on the path of indiscriminate weakening of norms, and accordingly, the norms could not be very weakened, and as a result of the work of the “conciliation commission” they even managed to improve them.

The next object of the project of the project office was the main subsection act of the "Law on the Protection of Lake Baikal" - "List of activities prohibited in the central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory." They thoroughly prepared for the renewal of the list: they burned bridges - they canceled as part of the "regulatory guillotine" old "list", which was operating for almost twenty years. Now, if nothing is accepted - from the new year the prohibitions guarding the Baikal will not remain.

To update the list, the MPR requested all the influential interests what changes and messages they want, and the regions, departments and sharks of the business made a long list of weakening of security modes. As different lobbyists look into the design office in Baikal, the project of the list of prohibitions is bought and emasculated, and also changes beyond recognition from one discussion to the next. At the same time, the department gives out this chaotic process of lobbying as a “wide public discussion”, because several public figures and scientists are nevertheless invited to the “conciliation commissions” equipped mainly by the lobbyists, whose work resembles fighting without rules.

In the summer of 2020, the new project “List” set by the public’s insistence on the website of discussion of regulatory acts scored a record 11 thousand diesel engines, and formal answers to people who gave written comments occupy hundreds of pages. But since the development of new Baikal protection standards is based on either a scientific justification or a competent assessment of risks, there is no sense in the receipt of sensible remarks, because it is known in advance that the lobbyists should win, otherwise why was it all to start?

The interests are very different: from the packs of lawyers and Irkutsk deputies, frantically lobbying to simplify the distribution of lands for the construction of hotels and cottages under the pretext of “restoration of the violated rights of the population”, to the development corporation “VEB”, which believes that freedom from environmental restrictions is the key to “sustainable” development of the Baikalsk and industrial zones of the BTsBK. The phraseology of all participants in this choir is related to the Baikal design office. The General refrain: “The Baikal environmental legislation interferes with the green development of the territory” (the phraseology “Peace is familiar to pain is war, freedom is slavery ...”).

As a result, the MPR is going to submit to Mishustin a project in which:

- for Russian Railways, “privileges” obtained under the recently adopted law on trunk infrastructure are forever assigned;

- VEB and Rosatom receive the right to build objects of any hazard category for the production of any work on the reclamation of territories that have been negative in connection with the activities of the BCC;

- at the insistence of the regional authorities, all landfills (more than 60) can remain in their places, and their contents can be burned;

- at the insistence of the VEB, the construction of new ports and coastalities and mass of other engineering structures is encouraged, which "may be needed" for the development of Baikalsk;

- at the request of the Irkutsk region, explosive work in the water protection zone is allowed for the construction of not only railways, but also roads;

- At the request of the Republic of Buryatia, despite the widespread abuses, the harvesting of wood is allowed in the implementation of measures for the protection, protection, reproduction of forests. That is, on the World Heritage section, commercial cutting will continue and expand;

- at the insistence of unknown interests with rich fantasy, transportation by lake of oil products, agricultural fertilizers, pesticides, potent and toxic substances are allowed, provided that it is packaged in hermetic containers or the use of a double bottom ...;

- According to the persistent requests of Irkutsk deputies, water protection zones and unnecessary natural territories can be built up with hotels, cottages and bungalows, if they are in the continuously expanding boundaries of coastal settlements and special economic zones.

This item has a number of especially unpleasant and far -reaching consequences. The mass boom of tourism on the coast of Lake Baikal has already led to a huge number of violations in the land sphere for the past 10 years. The environmental prosecutor's office initiated multiple claims about the demolition of illegally erected objects in the water protection zone of Lake Baikal. It is clear that the exclusion of the prohibition of construction in the protective zone of the lake will lead to mass legalized (in court) of these illegally constructed objects. For example, on the island of Olkhon, every second illegal hotel actually belongs to Chinese business. And the Chinese lead the tourist business, so only the most minimum share of profit remains in Russia and works for the local economy. The other half of the tourist business belongs to Irkutsk and Moscow officials and the entrepreneurs associated with them. Therefore, the "local population" permission to build a water protection zone will bring minimum benefits and a lot of problematic neighbors.

The most obvious consequence of the intensification of the development will be the aggravation of the already descending degradation of the Baikal shallow lead. The coast of Lake Baikal is not provided with sewing facilities in sufficient quantities in order to at least somehow reduce the hit of the uncleaned effluents in Baikal. Accordingly, the growth of the number of buildings and the number of tourists will mean the growth of pollution and the destruction of the ecosystems of the lake, which can no longer cope with the modern amount of drains.

At the same time, there is no concept of “Baikal’s protection” behind a new list, it has no environmental justification, and in some places it contradicts the spirit and letter of the Law “On the Protection of Lake Baikal”. But the head of the project office in Baikal, Maxim Staeva, has already announced that this contradiction is temporary and, having finished the "list", the office will take up the editing of the law on Lake Baikal ...

But not only the project office of the national project "Ecology" "steers" the plunder of Lake Baikal. Rosvodresurses and the Department of State Policy and Regulation in the field of water resources of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia recently submitted to Mishustin a decree very dangerous for the ecosystem of Baikal and the population on an unlimited expansion of the level of vibrations of Lake Baikal, which is regulated by the dam of the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station. It is known that in connection with the mass illegal development of the lower bief along the Angara River, in order to avoid its flooding, discharge from the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station is less necessary. At the last meeting of the Angaro-Baikal basin council, it is recommended to establish the establishment of flooding zones at a height mark of 458.2 m. It is predicted that the flooding zone will be more than 500 m in some places. That is, with one hand, building the construction in the water protection zone with the other hand of the Ministry of Natural Resources prepares the flooding of the coastal territory to ensure the needs of the hydroelectric power stations and illegal land developers along the Angara. At the same time, both new buildings and villages, standing on the shore for hundreds of years. This is a remarkable example of state planning based on the unconducted lobbying of different forces.

More than 200 comments from hundreds of experts and concerned citizens were received on the draft government decree "On the maximum and minimum values of the water level in Lake Baikal", but the department was shallowed without changing the letters. The Academy of Sciences recommended that the study of the environmental and social consequences of regulating the level of Baikal - the department did not lead. Obviously, the interests of energy companies and land speculators are much more important for the department than the requirements of the Law of Lake Baikal and the well -being of citizens living on its shores.

It is interesting why the new Minister of Ecology Kozlov, whose competence was doubted even by the deputies who approved his candidacy, such a scandalous debut?

And why did the chairman of the Government Commission on Baikal Abramchenko not insist on conducting examinations of these projects of the key normative acts for Lake Baikal and submitting their results of the commission?

And, of course, the most interesting thing, which of the president’s instructions are facilitated by the fulfillment of the President’s instructions on the signature of the draft normative acts?

Evgeny Simonov - Ecologist

The "Opinion" expressed in the heading of the point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial office