Preserving Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal faces many environmental threats, from the paper mill that discharges waste into the lake to oil and natural gas pipelines that could destroy the lake's surroundings and potentially poison the lake itself.
At the annual Russia Today lecture by members of the Wellesley College Russian Area Studies faculty, Professor Hodge spoke of the immiment danger of oil pipelines being constructed through lands adjacent to Lake Baikal. His presentation catalyzed a coalition of students and faculty to write to the New York Times voicing our concerns for the lake. Our letter:
³Nature as the sole creator of things still has its favorites,² writes Russian author Valentin Rasputin. ³Baikal, without a doubt, is one of these.² Indeed, Siberiaıs Lake Baikal is truly extraordinary and truly unique. It is the worldıs oldest and deepest lake. Its vast basin contains one-fifth of the worldıs freshwater and thousands of endemic species. The fight to save Baikal from pulp-mill effluent in the early 1960s energized the modern Russian environmentalist movement, and the lake plays a crucial role today in Russian culture and national pride. It remains one of the most pristine wildernesses in a country scarred by Soviet-era industrial projects. Yet although Baikal was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996, and although its shore is ringed by nature preserves, Russiaıs great lake may face a more serious threat today than it has throughout all of its 25-million-year existence.
With the collaboration of the Russian and Chinese governments, Yukos Oil Russiaıs second-largest corporation is planning to build a petroleum pipeline to China from Angarsk through the Tunkinsky National Park near the southern tip of the lake. A competing project, sponsored by Transneft, the Russian state pipeline monopoly, seeks to build pipelines for oil and natural gas that would pass close to the northern end of Baikal en route to Nakhodka, a Russian port on the Sea of Japan. Meanwhile, Russia Petroleum with major funding from BP, have proposed a natural gas line parallel to the proposed Yukos oil pipeline. All three projects mandate construction through World Heritage Site lands.
Besides the immediate environmental impact of the proposed construction, the threat of oil leaks into the lake is alarmingly real, since both pipeline routes pass through seismically active mountain ranges where earthquakes well over 7 on the Richter scale are frequent. If a spill were to occur, oil could reach the lake through Baikalıs many tributaries in as little as one hour while the filing of an actual report of a spill in such a remote region could take several days. In the last ten years, six major oil leaks have occurred on the short Angarsk-Krasnoyarsk pipeline in the Irkutsk region alone, spilling over 40,000 tons of crude into the environment. Poor construction and improperly trained personnel have contributed to these disasters. With the deadline for completing the southern pipeline rapidly approaching in 2005, the probability is high that it, too, will be plagued by these problems.
Furthermore, such construction through National Park and World Heritage Site land is illegal under Russian and international law. Yukos is pressuring the Russian government to redraw Tunkinsky National Park boundaries in order to legalize its proposed construction route, and without an international effort to stop the corporation, it is likely to get its way. In early September 2003, the Russian governmentıs Ministry of Natural Resources rejected the preliminary Yukos and Transneft plans as too risky, but the fight for Baikal goes on. According to Deputy Minister of Natural Resources K. V. Yankov, ³Both projects have been sent back to [Yukos and Transneft] planners for revision, but this does not mean that the question of oil pipelines to the East is closed.²
We urge you to write to the following officials to register your concern at this crucial juncture. (See addresses below.)
What You Can Do:
Outside
of Russia:
-Teach
others
-Donate to the worthy environmental groups working to preserve Lake Baikal
-Write
a letter.
In Russia:
--Volunteer for or donate to the environmental groups working to preserve Lake
Baikal
--See Baikal for yourself
--Make sure your city, region, and national representatives know about the threat
to Baikal
--Teach others
Baikal Environmental Links
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