Protesters rally against Lake Baikal's mill operations

Reuters 27 Mar 10;

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Small protests took place across Russia Saturday against the reopening of a Lake Baikal paper mill over concerns it was polluting the world's largest freshwater lake.

Around 200 people gathered in St. Petersburg, thousands of kilometers away from the lake, demanding to revoke the government's January decision to restart Baikal Paper Mill.

Another 500 rallied closer to Baikal, which holds a fifth of the world's total surface fresh water, in the city of Ulan-Ude in the Buryat Republic, according to the organizers.

The loss-making Soviet-era factory was shut in October 2008 after the government ordered it to install a system for drainage away from the lake.

Environmentalists and politicians have staged several protests in recent months, saying the waste from the plant contains harmful substances that destroy the lake's rich wildlife of 1,500 species of animals and plants.

"Putin - hands off Baikal" read a banner displayed at the St. Petersburg rally.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signaled in August his willingness to lift the restrictions that prevented the plant from dumping waste into the lake after diving to the bed of the lake and consulting with scientists.

"I worked myself in a paper producing industry," Grigory Borisov, a 45-year-old engineer from St. Petersburg told Reuters. "I know that Baikal is getting polluted and no purifying facility will save the lake."

Several hundred supporters of the factory, which employs 1,600 people, gathered Saturday in the city of Baikalsk, on the shoreline of the lake, which remains sacred for some Siberian tribes, in a rally organized by the mill.

A closure of the mill could lead to another ecological problem for Baikalsk, which would be left without revenues to operate water purifying plants and sewage facilities for the town, the organizers said.

The decision to reopen the Soviet-era mill is seen as part of the government's broader support for Russia's single industry towns, often in remote areas.

The government owns 49 percent of the mill. Tycoon Oleg Deripaska owns a minority stake.

(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing in Moscow by Lidia Kelly)

Russians rally to save Lake Baikal
Yahoo News 27 Mar 10;

SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) – Russians on Saturday protested at the reopening of a paper mill on the shore of Lake Baikal which environmentalists say endangers one of the world's largest freshwater reserves.

Nearly 200 people turned out in central Saint Petersburg, Russia's former imperial capital, as environmental organisations including Greenpeace warned of turning the scenic Siberian lake into a sewer.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in January gave the go-ahead for the reopening of the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill which has been shut since 2008 and is owned by billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Demonstrators were planning to send a collection of toilet paper to Putin whose decision they argue would lead to discharging tonnes of sewage into the lake and incinerating waste on the lakefront.

"If authorities are in dire need of paper and need to destroy the Baikal, we're giving them paper," said Dmitry Artamonov, the local Greenpeace chief.

Lake Baikal, the world's deepest freshwater lake and a UN World Heritage site, is renowned for its unique flora and fauna and contains about 20 percent of the planet's freshwater reserves.

"The attitude toward the Baikal shows the pervasive ecological arbitrariness in the country," said 37-year-old demonstrator Yevgeny Kozlov.

WWF Russia representative Yevgeny Schwartz has warned that reopening the mill is dangerous "because they are going to resume the production of white cellulose with chlorine", which is a toxic gas.

About 100 people rallied in a similar protest in the eastern Siberian city of Ulan-Ude, Russian news agencies reported.

Nearly 700 people turned out to back Putin's decision in the town of Baikalsk where the mill is located.

Agencies said the plant employs about 1,600 people.

An official said in late January that the factory's closed water circulation system, built to avoid pollution to the lake, had not been put back into service.

The high cost of operating the system had led to the plant's closure in 2008.

Critics say the reopening of the mill also is an obstacle to the development of alternative economic activities for the region, mainly in tourism and ecology.

Russian protesters say factory to pollute world's oldest lake
Yahoo News 28 Mar 10;

MOSCOW (AFP) – Hundreds of people protested on Sunday in Moscow against the reopening of a factory environmentalists say will lead to waste being dumped into the world's oldest lake, a Greenpeace activist said.

"The fate of (factory) workers must be decided while taking into account the fate of (Lake) Baikal -- and not that of the oligarchs," Russian writer Valentin Rasputin said in a message read out during the protest.

Greenpeace activist Evgeny Usov put the number of protesters at nearly 1,000.

The cellulose factory, on the shores of Lake Baikal in Siberia, was closed in October 2008, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin authorised its reopening earlier this year.

It was controlled until recently by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, but he announced in February that slightly more than a quarter of his capital was transferred to one of his partners, making him a minority shareholder.

The state holds a 49 percent stake.

Cellulose is used to manufacture a range of products, including paper.

Environmentalists say its reopening will allow waste water to be dumped into the lake and rubbish to be burned on its shores.

Lake Baikal, a UN World Heritage site, is believed to be 25 million years old. It is the world's deepest and contains 20 percent of the globe's total unfrozen freshwater reserves, according to UNESCO.

On Saturday, nearly 200 people turned out in central Saint Petersburg as environmental organisations warned of turning the lake into waste water.

Nearly 700 people turned out to back Putin's decision in the town of Baikalsk, where the mill is located.