Putin advises government to "keep eye" on Baikal pulp plant

Multimedia Photo: Russian PM Putin dives to bottom of Lake Baikal Infographics: Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill: Production rates and environmental problems Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the country's natural resources ministry to monitor the situation at the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill that has reopened near Lake Baikal amid protests from nature activists. "We will keep a cautious eye on the situation at the mill, when it restarts operation," Putin said during a meeting on Wednesday with Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev. "Scientists told me no major ecological changes took place during the decades of the mill's operation when I visited it last summer. We should, however, monitor the situation closely," he added. A public campaign to close or convert the mill built in 1966 on the shores of the world's largest freshwater lake became one of the symbols of Glasnost, the "openness" policy proclaimed by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s. It involved the nation's leading statesmen and literary men and forced the Soviet government to promise a halt to pulp production by 1993. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 delayed the decision, and it was only in October 2008 that the plant switched over to a closed water cycle, preventing the discharge of waste into the lake, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Trutnev told the prime minister that during his talks with Oleg Deripaska, the owner of the plant, further details of the situation at the mill had been revealed. "He [Deripaska] said new technologies to prevent pollution in the lake haven't been developed yet, but they will have them worked out in three years' time," said Trutnev. On January 13, Putin signed a resolution excluding the production of pulp, paper and cardboard from the list of operations banned in the Baikal natural territory. Environmentalists decried the move and are planning to appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev to cancel Putin's resolution. In late December, the Baikal mill started testing its equipment, and produced the first test batch of unbleached pulp last week.