The Battle for Baikal: Before its too Late! (page 2)
Are passions about Baikal cooling?
While reading the "Baikalsk Syndrome" the thought kept coming to mind-where have all of Baikal's defenders gone? Has the situation concerning the mill become so clear that there is no longer the need to shout about it at the top of one's lungs? Have people lost hope to further struggle? Perhaps today there is even more pressure on opposers of the mill and those that might fight it, are afraid to express their opinion, choosing instead to live by the principle "it's better to not make noise, you've got a job after all, and one should be thankful for that." Are people simply tired? Or is it, even worse, an expression of people's indifference to the lake's fate? Have people become used to the fact that the lake is being polluted? The economic situation is difficult, but inaction in regards to environmental questions will only make matters that much worse.
A little over a year ago, the participants of Irkutsk State University's international conference "The Kozhov Readings" sent a petition to members of the local government in regards to the state of the environment. As far as I know, to this date no answer has been received. How is it that this call, carrying an assesment of the environmental situation by independent scientists, which today is needed more than ever before, is left unheeded?
In his book, Goldfarb mentions instances of pressure put on staff of the Limnological Institute in the '60s because they told visitors of the Baikal Museum about the Baikalsk mill and its impact on the lake. Newspapers published only one side of the public discussion concerning the mill. Of course, the authorities were particularly sensitive to the involvement of foreigners in the discussion. In this regard, the situation today is much better than it was before.
What else has changed since the time when defenders of Baikal were accused of "complicity with capitalism"? Today they are accused of rendering the final blows to "the Russian economy which is weak enough without their interference." For the present, we are only sure of the following: that if we say anything negative about Baikal being polluted, sales of Baikal water will be damaged; that if we make remarks to the effect that the so-called "closed water cycle" at the Selenginsk Mill is actually leaking polluted waste waters, a stormy negative reaction is elicited from the present director of the Limnological Institute.
What was the meaning of the public outcry against the pipeline?
As it was already mentioned, the idea to build a pipeline to divert the waste waters from the Baikalsk Pulp Mill into the Irkut river arose even before the construction of the mill itself. As V.A. Koptiug said, "In all cases, the pipeline was suggested as an extreme measure to protect Baikal only in the event that it proved impossible to close or convert the mill." As it turned out, practical steps to implement the pipeline idea were only taken at the end of the '80s when the issue was raised by the Ministry for Pulp and Paper during an official enquiry chaired by N.V. Talyzin. At this point the construction was seen as an "alternative to converting the Baikalsk mill."
The idea was made public in 1987 in a decree of the Communist Party and the Soviet of Ministers of the Soviet Union No. 434 entitled "On measures for the conservation and rational use of the Baikal watershed 1987-1995" with a paragraph on the diversion "of treated waste waters from the Baikalsk pulp mill to the Irkut river..."
As soon as the news reached the public's attention, there was a very strong reaction. People were indignant at the fact that there had been no public discussion about this question that directly concerned them. The fight against the pipeline was fougth against a background of cutting the forest and unloading of pipes. Some say that people reacted so strongly because the pipes would place a threat on the health of the people of the Priangaric area, while others saw the pipeline's construction as an obstacle to the radical conversion of the mill on Baikal. It was most likely a combination of the two. Whatever the case, the citizens of Irkutsk had no doubt that the mill was polluting the water. Within a few months, activists gathered 107,000 signatures against the construction of the pipeline and for the speeding up of the conversion of the mill. Eventually 150,000 signatures were collected, but by this time the decree had already been revoked.
I have heard two interpretations of why, in the end, the decree was revoked in 1988. Some are convinced that it was because of the public protest; others claim that it was because of economical reasons.
And after the pipeline?
Stanislav Goldfarb's book includes the complete text of an article by Academician N.M. Zharvoronkov, "The Truth about Baikal." Among scientists he was one of the more influential defenders of the mills. In the article he outlines the history of the mill from his point of view, and expresses the opinion that it is not worth converting nor closing the mill. He repeats the opinion that was once expressed by Pyotr Kapitsa that the "lake can and should be exploited..." Zhavaronkov gives his very peculiar way of looking at the issue: "The problem of exploting Baikal puts a clear task before biologists to determine the nature of the ecological processes that take place in the water when it is under the influence of industrial wastes, and to figure out with what type of pollutants and to what extent it is possible to pollute Baikal until it is no longer able to purify itself." The logic is shocking. I do not know about you, but as I read and reread this statement I feel as if it has been written by the inhabitant of some other planet. Haven't you chosen a too luxurious laboratory for your experiment, gentlemen? In the opinion of Valentin Koptiug (the the Chairman of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences) expressed in an interview with the author of "The Baikalsk Syndrome", at the foundation of Zharvoronkov's view "there is an idealistic impression of industry... he apparently comes from the position that it is possible to do everything properly. But he didn't take into account the fact that Baikal is a place where even the most ideal industry should not be placed".
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