The history of the pulp and paper mill on the shores of Lake Baikal dates back to the 1950's. It is well documented up until the 1980's by Stanislav Goldfarb in a book called "The Baikalsk Syndrome," which reflects the complex relations between society and the greatest lake on Earth, Baikal. This drama, which is still unfolding, poses critical decisions for society today. In order to make these choices more effectively and wisely, it is important for us to look back briefly to the very beginning and examine this history.

In 1954 the Soviet Government made the decision to build a pulp mill at Baikalsk, on the south eastern shore of Lake Baikal, due to the need for high quality cord for aircraft tires. Kept a classified secret for four years, when this decision was made known to scientists in 1958, the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences immediately expressed grave concern for the future of this enormous yet fragile lake. In a report on June 2, 1958 a senior scientist at the Academy's Laboratory at Baikal (which later became known as the Limnological Institute) recommended a number of alternative sites instead of Baikal, fully suitable for the production of "super pulp." This document however mysteriously vanished somewhere in the files of the Ministry for Timber and Paper Industry (Minllesbumprom).

At the Conference on the Development of Industry in Eastern Siberia, held in Irkutsk in 1958, it was proposed to declare Baikal a zapovednik, "a strict nature reserve." At this time Baikal was being threatened with destruction by two potential development projects: the construction of the pulp mill at Baikalsk and the deepening of the mouth of the Angara river (the only river that flows out of Baikal) in order to create a strong current for a hydro-electric station in Irkutsk, located just 60 km from Baikal to the west. In addition to this proposal, in November, 1959, a statement of protest by a group of scientists against the construction of the pulp mill was published in the newspaper "Sovetskaya Rossia". It was only at this time that the news of the proposed mill reached the general public.

In addition to this, in the concluding documents of the meeting of the Baikal Commission, the All-Union Hydrobiological Society of the Academy of the Sciences, and the Departments of Nature Protection, Hydrobiology and Ichthyology of the Moscow Society of Naturalists, it was stated that "it is necessary to attract the public's attention to the fact that it is impermissible to build pulp and paper mills on the shores of Lake Baikal as they would inevitably lead to the contamination of the entire lake by toxic wastes released from these mills. Such construction would also have a negative impact on Baikal's water balance due to the ultimate erosion of the lake's shores arising from the inherent intensive logging in the river basins which feed into Baikal.

Despite all of these attempts of protest, the Soviet Ministers issued a decree in 1961 ordering the construction of the mill and the floating of timber over Baikal. Subsequently, in the same year Grigory Galazy, then the head of the Limnological Station at Baikal wrote a letter to the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" against the ideas contained in this decree. In Goldfarb's words (The Baikalsk Syndrome) this "was one of the first appeals to the public in which doubt was cast on the dictates of government departments."

The Komsomol (young communist) mill construction team however retorted that there wouldn't be any problems with the mill. "The only question that remains now is about the most effective means in which the industrial waste waters will be treated... but if we unite and target our efforts on solving this problem, we will solve it, and the mill on the shores of Baikal will only enhance the lake's beauty." The management of the mill itself used this argument against the "ungrounded and continuous revision in the decrees of both the Party and Government" with regards to construction of the mill. Opposition to pulp production on the shore of Baikal was compared with opposition to "the mighty plans of the Party for building Communism." Threatening words indeed in the context of those times.

In January 1962, E.N. Novoselov, the head of a group representing the Siberian Division of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, wrote to the Central Committee of the Communist Party about the inevitability of Baikal's destruction if the Baikalsk mill were to be constructed. In this letter he expressed the opinion that Baikal's destruction could not be justified by any material gains.

In the same year a commission of experts representing the State Committee of the Soviet of Ministers acknowledged that "pollution of the near shore zone... is inevitable." The commission further noted that capital expenditures on waste water treatment facilities and their exploitation increase dramatically with each successive measure to increase the environmental security of the mill. The analysis also showed defects in a number of the project regulations done by Giprobum: many factors, such as

accidental discharges, had not even been taken into consideration and the assessment of the likely levels of pollutants had been understated. The chairman of the expert group, Zhukov, made a very compelling speech during a meeting of the Moscow Society of Naturalists' Department of Nature Protection. His words, which were first made public in Goldfarb's book, demand special attention:

"Experience shows that the construction of cleaning devices always falls behind the building of production workshops (both in new plants as well as in the expansion of existing ones), and the operation crews working with these cleaning devices are always less staffed than are those working with production equipment. Given these factors alone, one can say that the actual discharge of contaminants into Baikal will be more than is stated in the project..."

Despite all warnings and objections, The Russian Federation's Gosplan Expertise defended the construction of the two pulp mills at Baikal, basing their position on the conclusions of one S. Krasnoshekov, a scientist working for the Fisheries Department, which were given July 27, 1958. Conclusions that the Division of Nature Protection of the Soviet Academy of Sciences declared incompetent. Unfortunately, Krasnoshekov's conclusions that the Baikalsk mills' waste waters would "not only cause no harm, but instead create the conditions necessary for the development of life within their distribution radius" had already had their effect - Giprobum received the approval of the Sanitary Inspectorate and the Erisman Institute to go ahead with the project. Additionally, a commission led by Academician Zhavoronkov, with the support of the President of the Academy of Sciences, gave its approval to the construction of the mill without a pipeline to the Irkut River, which lies outside of the Baikal watershed. The categorically negative conclusions of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences was ignored.

High-powered opposition to the mill's construction continued: an Interdepartmental Expert Commission of the East Siberian Branch of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences, in 1966, concluded that a considerable part of Baikal would be effected by high concentrations of harmful substances as a result of the proposed mill. And the Economics Commission of the Soviet of Nationalities proposed a ban on the construction of the mill and that the lake and the surrounding territory be declared a water protection zone with special status. At the same time, in an enclosure to his letter to Leonid Brezhnev, Academician Trofimuk noted: "Many countries of the world, including our own, are on the verge of a fresh water crisis. One can judge the price of fresh water from the fact that the US considers it to their advantage to pay Canada two billion dollars a year for the right to use fresh water from its rivers." But in this same year the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill went into operation. Not surprisingly, in its first year of operation, the plant exceeded its projected discharge levels of industrial waste water more than 100 times.

Goldfarb notes in his book, "Now we know that despite all the decrees, despite all calls from scientists and the general public, the mill was set in operation with violations in the construction of the waste water treatment facilities. But for some reason both then and now they are thought to be the best in the world." The author follows with an example of how the myth of the mill's harmlessness was created. In the media it was stated that in order to decrease the quantity of waste waters, the mill designers made provisions for special treatment measures - " the most favourable technological set-up for the mill's operation by which all waste is processed and reused in production without leaving the mill. For this reason the waste water that demands treatment is only the result of the periodical washing of the boilers and the shop floors. Even so, in spite of such insignificant amounts of waste water, the construction project includes large, state of the art waste water treatment facilities."

Scientists, who had been unable to stop the construction of the mill, continued to report on the threats arising from the mill's operation and demanded additional measures to ensure protection of the lake from its waste waters. They once again reverted to the frequently discussed idea of building a pipeline to divert the mill's waste waters out of the Baikal watershed and into the river Irkut. This idea was much more attractive now, as it was clear that the mill would continue to operate despite the calls for alarm.

Continued pressure from the scientific community resulted in periodic decisions to improve the mill's operation, as can be seen from the decree of the USSR Soviet of Ministers, in 1969, "On additional measures for the conservation and rational use of the natural resources of Lake Baikal," which provided for a number of measures to protect the lake from the Baikalsk mill.

Two years later, a commission of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences concluded that discharges of pollutants from the mill exceeded those projected by 10 to 200-500 percent. There were also discharge "bursts" when the concentration of pollutants were as much as 20-30 times greater than those planned. Despite these figures, the commission chose both not to close the mill and not to divert the waste water into the river Irkut. Akademician Laskorin noted at this point that the viscose cord that was being produced by the mill was going out of use, being increasingly replaced by higher quality synthetic cord. In other words, the Baikalsk cord would not be needed for aircraft tyres. "The greatest mistake was made when it was asserted that the mill was being constructed for the production of aviation cord." As a result of these ministerial miscalculations, the USSR had fallen behind in the production of synthetic cord.

At a meeting of the Academy of Science's Commission on Baikal, November 1, 1971, Trofimuk blamed Vinogradov for his light-mindedness in regards to the problem of the Baikalsk mill. They blamed him for the fact that Vinogradov together with Tihomirov had signed an intercession to the USSR Soviet of Ministers "not having received the consent, and not having discussed this matter at the presidium of the Academy of Sciences, in order to allow the mill to work according to the 1971 standards. These standards allowed the mill to discharge waste waters directly into Baikal." In contrast, in this same year a new government decree was issued "On additional measures to ensure the rational use and the conservation of the natural treasures of the Baikal watershed," in which it was recommended to tighten up the control over the mill's waste water treatment facilities.

In the Battle for Baikal the predominant sentiment of the scientific community and other famous people was in favour of the lake's protection. Yet, in May 1973, an article by Pyotr Kapitsa in "Pravda" supported the use of Baikal "but only in such a way that life in its waters is not disturbed and that its purifying qualities are maintained." Academician Trofimuk answered this article in a long letter:

"It is precisely because of this illusion, that maintains that Baikal has reserves, unknown to science, that are capable of purifying waste water, that it has been permitted to use these reserves and, ..., until science is able to solve this mystery, to pollute Baikal at least up until 1975... Now, as before, the matter of guilt lies not with those useless directors, who, ignoring scientific data and without any basis, placed two enormous pulp mills on the banks of Baikal, but instead with scientists, who as a result of their own inertia have as yet not revealed the secret behind Baikal's mechanism of self-purification.

"It has now become obvious, and confirmed by a high-level governmental commission, that the mill should not have been built on Baikal's shores. Moreover, it has been proven by a well known commission under the direction of B.N. Laskorin, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, that Baikal's pure water was not by any means necessary for the production needs of the Baikalsk pulp mill and even more so for the Selinginsk pulp and carton mill... The same commission also proved that the proposed production of high-quality pulp at Baikalsk, that was to be used in the production of aviation cord is no longer needed by industry. This cord is now made from synthetic materials, which the Baikalsk mill is not capable of producing. Therefore, the mill will turn into an factory that produces ordinary pulp. Additionally, the supply of lumber from the forests surrounding the mill are not sufficient- already 40-50% of the lumber is supplied from the Far East which greatly raises the factory's cost of production. The pulp industry's establishment on Lake Baikal in such a way has been plagued by a chain of mistakes and marked with disregard for the predictions of scientists.

"Great loss has been brought upon the government, a loss which will only increase with continued operation of the mills. Expenditures on waste water treatment of these enterprises (with an estimate of 10 kopeks per cubic meter of waste water) totals 50-60 million roubles a year, an amount that exceeds the value of production on both mills combined."

Pyotr Kapitsa was later to change his position on the Baikalsk issue and used his high level position to advocate the diversion of the mill's waste waters outside of the lake's watershed, but only in the event that "it were impossible to relocate the mills to a different location." He also criticised the short sighted "ban on printing any information about Baikal."