-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- http://www.earthradioTV.com ===== Russian Environmental Digest (REDfiles) is a compilation of the week's major English-language press on environmental issues in Russia. 27 March - 2 April 2000, Vol. 2, No. 13 1. Supreme Court to Consider Appeal Against Environmentalist's Acquittal 2. Russia's Review of Nikitin Case Seen as A Test of 'Dictatorship' 3. Russian Supreme Court Postpones Trial over Ecologist 4. Chechen Environment Contaminated with Oil, Petroproducts 5. Problems of Casting-head Gas Recovery in Priobye 6. Tender for Purification of Territories Polluted with Oil 7. 19 People Fall Ill with Typhoid Fever in Chechen Village 8. Oil Port under Construction in Leningrad Region 9. A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev 10. Russia Says It Doesn't Need U.S. Food Aid 11. Russian Nuclear Sub Wreck in Norwegian Sea Harmless 12. Russian Research Reactors Unsafe: Government Inspector 13. Russia Registered 16,000 Nuclear Safety Violations in 1999 14. Over 120,000 New Cases of Tuberculosis Registered in Russia in 1999 1 Supreme Court to Consider Appeal Against Environmentalist's Acquittal Interfax News Agency, March 29, 2000 Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider the appeal of St. Petersburg's prosecutors against the verdict passed on environmentalist Alexander Nikitin. Nikitin was arrested by the Federal Security Service on February 6, 1996 on charges of high treason and disclosure of state secrets while writing a report for the Norwegian environmental-protection organization Bellona about the potential risks of radioactive contamination of the northwestern region. An investigation into the case lasted nearly four years, culminating in Nikitin's acquittal by the city court of St. Petersburg on December 29, 1999. For the first time in Russia's judicial history a citizen won a case against the state security service. Nikitin's defense lawyer Yuri Schmidt earlier said at a press conference that "irrespective of the Supreme Court's decision, Nikitin's case will be subsequently taken up by the European Court in Strasbourg." Nikitin said in turn that he will continue to do his old work and cooperate with Bellona. (back to top) 2 Russia's Review of Nikitin Case Seen as A Test of 'Dictatorship' The Ottawa Citizen, March 29, 2000 Russia's Supreme Court reviews the acquittal of anti-nuclear activist Alexander Nikitin today in a case that has been placed in the spotlight by support from president-elect Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent. The FSB, a successor to the KGB security police, arrested Mr. Nikitin on treason charges in 1996 for making public information about radioactive pollution in the Arctic Sea through the Norwegian environmental group Bellona. Many say the court's decision in the Nikitin case will send a message about whether or not the Russian constitution is impervious to authoritarian interference. ''The court review will be a small indicator of what's coming in this country,'' Mr. Nikitin, a former navy captain said in a press conference yesterday in downtown Moscow. Mr. Nikitin was held in custody for 10 months following the treason charges and then released to face trial. A city court in St. Petersburg dismissed the charges last December, based on the Russian constitution, which states that no secret sub-legal acts, norms or laws can be sued against a citizen. Citizen editorial writer Dan Gardner recently won the 1999 Amnesty International media award for human rights coverage for a feature story that traced Mr. Nikitin's struggle to expose environmental hazards posed by nuclear waste and decommissioned nuclear submarines in the Russian Arctic. Mr. Putin, elected Russian president on Sunday, headed the FSB for part of the time it was pressing its case against Mr. Nikitin. Some human rights activists are anxious about a vow Mr. Putin made this year to establish a ''dictatorship of the law'', emphasizing dictatorship rather than the law. But yesterday Mr. Nikitin said he hoped his woes were about to end. ''Yes, Putin was the head of the FSB but he did not get directly involved the case and he did not begin it, and I hope he will end it,'' said Mr. Nikitin. ''I'm totally calm before tomorrow's review but would very much like this to be over because we have a lot of environmental work to do.'' Although Mr. Nikitin was outwardly calm, his attorney Yuri Shmidt said the FSB's continuing interest in the case was cause of concern. ''These forces are not calming down. We sense they are working behind the scenes,'' he said. Yevgeny Chernov, a former Soviet navy vice-admiral and nuclear submarine commander who is lobbying on Mr. Nikitin's behalf, said he was less concerned. ''I'm counting on the strength of Putin's character,'' he said. Mr. Nikitin, whose research documented the dumping of nuclear waste from 1965-89 and Soviet nuclear submarine accidents, said he would seek government compensation for his woes. (back to top) 3 Russian Supreme Court Postpones Trial over Ecologist ITAR-TASS News Agency, March 29, 2000 The Russian Supreme Court on Wednesday postponed hearings of the case against ecologist Alexander Nikitin accused of espionage and divulgation of state secrets, a court spokesman told reporters. The Federal Security Service (FSB) claims that Nikitin made public classified information that he collected while analysing radiation situation at the Northern Fleet. However the St. Petersburg city court fully acquitted the ecologist on December 29, 1999. After that, prosecutors lodged a protest with the Supreme Court's appellate board. However by Wednesday, materials of the case "have just arrived," the spokesman said. The hearings were postponed and no new date of the trial has been announced yet. (back to top) 4 Chechen Environment Contaminated with Oil, Petroproducts ITAR-TASS News Agency, April 2, 2000 Pollution of natural environment with oil and petroproducts is the main reason for an emergency situation in the Chechen Republic, said here on Sunday Colonel Alexander Schepachev, chief ecological security expert of the Russian Defence Ministry. According to the colonel, uncontrolled activities of the Dudayev-Maskhadov regime in the sphere of natural resources brought to life over 15,000 mini-refineries and oil-processing installations. These installations, built under the principle of a simple processing device, were exploited and, regrettably, some of them are exploited even now, despite all existing technical and ecological norms, the military expert emphasised. Schepachev explained that installations were located both close to oil wells and oil pipelines but also far from them in hideouts. This helped to produce and steal oil without any control. Low-grade petrol and diesel fuel, produced from oil, were sold out, while heavy fractions were spilled into soil. "Such production and processing of oil resulted in forming large seats of oil-polluted soil, surface and underground waters," the expert stressed. He noted that "depth of oil penetration into soil reaches two and more meters. "Concentration of petroproducts in soil over more than 15 percent of the republic's territory and near sources of pollution tops the nominal figure ten times and even more. " (back to top) 5 Problems of Casting-head Gas Recovery in Priobye RIA OREANDA, March 31, 2000 In March, the second regional meeting "Problems of the ecological safety of the oil & gas complex in Priobye and the ecological-economic development of the Khanty-Mansiisk okrug" took place in Nizhnevartovsk. One of the main questions considered at the meeting was the casting-head gas recovery. A single complex "Sibneftgaspererabotka" was founded in the Tyumen region with a view to make the most efficient use of oil & gas resources. The company deals with the collection, pre-processing, transportation of products to consumers. The regional gas-processing plants are very important for the Fuel & Energy Complex of the West Siberia: guarantee the pure terms of the oil mining process by means of the qualified casting-head gas recovery; stripped gas delivery to the Nizhnevartovsk & Surgut hydroelectric power stations; the raw materials base forming for petrochemical sphere. In 1999, the level of the oil & gas resources made up 87% in the Khanty-Mansiisk okrug. The Russian Government makes statements about the monopolies' price containment, but the policy is not balanced at all. Thus, during the last 10 years, from 1990, the associated petroleum gas price increased from 15 to 150 roubles per 1000 cubic meters (10 times); electric power - from 2 to 37.2 kopecks per kWh (18 times); stripped gas - increased 5 times. The implementation of the federal program "Fuel & Energy" is suspended because of the lack of the financing. Some oil companies stopped the construction of gas collection & recovery objects. The gas processing enterprises are loaded by 40%, the rate of the average deterioration amounts to 65%. The state of the pipeline transfer is unsatisfactory. If the gas processing enterprises stop operating, it will lead to the ecological catastrophe, oil production go-off, economic losses. The participants of the meeting made a decision to approve the Order of the establishment & classified levying of the payment for the pollution of the environment on the popping of the associated petroleum gas; to elaborate & pass the law "About the associated petroleum gas"; to charge the public company "Sibirsko-Uralskaya nefetgazohimicheskaya kompaniya" to implement the program of the financial recovery of the Tyumen region gas processing & gas transporting enterprises. (back to top) 6 Tender for Purification of Territories Polluted with Oil Agency What The Papers Say, March 31, 2000 Specialized companies from Syktyvkar, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk, St. Petersburg and Moscow will participate in the tender to be held by specialists of KomiTEK and environmental organizations. In 2000, KomiTEK plans to spend over 70 million rubles on purification of territories polluted with oil. The company plans to clean up about 126 hectares. The candidates for the tender will have to prove that they possess the necessary equipment, modern technologies of soil re-cultivation and skilled personnel. The PR service of the company reported that the tender approach to the choice of contractor will contribute to more efficient purification of polluted territories. (back to top) 7 19 People Fall Ill with Typhoid Fever in Chechen Village ITAR-TASS News Agency, March 31, 2000 Nineteen people, among them four children, have fallen ill with typhoid fever in Lermontovo village in the Chechen Republic's Achkhoi-Martan district, an official in Russia's State Sanitary and Epidemiological Inspectorate told Itar-Tass on Friday. According to specialists, all the sick were placed in the infectious diseases ward of the Achkhoi-Martan central district hospital. The diagnosis has been confirmed by laboratory serological studies in six cases. One patient is in serious condition while the condition of another 12 is being estimated as being of medium gravity. Sanitary physicians believe that the disease is connected with the use of water from a pond which is the only source of water supply. A package of sanitary and epidemiological measures is being taken. (back to top) 8 Oil Port under Construction in Leningrad Region ITAR-TASS News Agency, March 31, 2000 Work was started on Friday to build Russia's second largest oil port at Primorsk. It will be second only to Novorossiisk. Up to twelve million tonnes of crude oil will be exported through it annually in circumvention of the Baltic states. This terminal, located on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, in Russia's Leningrad Region, will be the end point of the Baltic pipeline system, which will run from the village of Kharyanga in the Komi Republic. It will be necessary to lay 450 kilometres of new pipelines and to reconstruct the 175-kilometre-long Yaroslavl-Kilishi tube in order to link these two points and to begin pumping oil through the new conduit. The cornerstone of the Primorsk oil port was laid by Leningrad Regional Governor Valery Serdyukov, Transport Minister Sergei Frank, and President of the Transneft Joint-Stock Society Semyon Vainshtok. Oil from the Timano-Pechora, West Siberian and Urals-Volga deposits, as well as from Kazakhstan will be pumped through the Baltic pipeline system. Its construction was started in accordance with several presidential decrees and government injunctions. The system will allow Russia to substantially boost the export of its oil and to lessen the dependence of Russian companies on oil ports in the Baltic states, through which Russian crude oil is now exported to the West. Chairman of the St.Petersburg and Leningrad Regional Environment Protection Committee Alexei Frolov stated during the cornerstone-laying ceremony that the project of the Baltic pipeline system was thoroughly checked from the ecological point of view. He said that about ten per cent of the cost of the project, the first section of which is estimated at 460 million dollars, would be spent on nature-protection measures. A special system for automatically piloting tankers and a service to clean up oil spills will be set up in the port of Primorsk. This work will be supervised by the Environment Protection Committee. Frolov stressed that every step of pipeline builders would be controlled by the committee and the project would be "frozen" if ecological requirements were violated. According to Frolov, the pipeline was designed in such a way as to minimize the harm dome to valuable forestlands and farm fields. All the pipes, tanks, pumping stations and other equipment of the pipeline system will be thoroughly checked before use. Better quality pipes will be used. The project envisages the use of the latest automatic, telemechanical and computer facilities, which will make the equipment more dependable and will allow to constantly monitor the pipeline's condition. The pipeline will be laid under the Neva River by the micro-tunnelling method. Moreover, it will be protected by special coating and will run not less than ten meters beneath the river bed. (back to top) 9 "A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev" Book Announcement Douglas R. Weiner. A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev. Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1999. xiv + 556 pp. Photographs, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-520-21397-1. Excerpt from the book review "'Cranks and Oddballs?': Nature-Protection Activists and Soviet Power" by Stephen V. Bittner, Department of History, University of Chicago. Readers of Douglas R. Weiner's superb new study of the Soviet nature-protection movement, A Little Corner of Freedom will find an absorbing cast of characters: a school teacher turned biologist who steers a shockingly intrepid group of environmental activists through the difficult years of Stalinism; a pragmatic bureaucrat who wonders why Soviet nature cannot be "souped up" to meet the demands of socialist construction; a party hack in environmentalist garb who is caught (and photographed) fishing with an illegal casting net on the Oka River; a General Secretary who asks from the Central Committee podium whether squirrels and bears care for the company of scientists; and a chorus of European bison, eider geese, raccoon dogs, muskrats, and other assorted flora and fauna, whose plight in the Soviet Union's nature preserves (zapovedniki) provides the essential backdrop for much of the book. While weaving these and other characters into a richly textured and engaging narrative that runs to nineteen chapters and four-hundred odd pages, Weiner makes a unique and provocative contribution to the burgeoning literature on popular resistance and protest in the Soviet Union. Nature-protection, Weiner argues, constituted an independent and critical-minded social movement that survived the reigns of Stalin and his successors (pp. 1-3). The survival strategies employed by this movement, and the identity politics which were at its core, comprise Weiner's central lines of inquiry. A Little Corner of Freedom stands as a sequel to Weiner's previous monograph on Soviet nature protection in the 1920s and early 30s, and is grounded in an eclectic body of primary-source data. Full review is available at http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/ (back to top) 10 Russia Says It Doesn't Need U.S. Food Aid IPR Strategic Business Information Database, March 30, 2000 First Deputy Agriculture Minister Anatolii Mikhalev told Interfax on 28 March that Russia will manage to meet its grain requirements without a new U.S. food assistance package. He added that "there are problems with feed grain for livestock, but they are solvable." Last September, the Russian government had requested 5 million tons of food aid, and in December the U.S. responded by offering what was then considered an interim donation of 500,000 tons. Some 20,000 tons of seeds were later added to that amount. In February 2000, Kemerovo Governor and then presidential candidate Aman Tuleev accused the U.S. of being reluctant to find out why U.S. rice infected with a toxic fungus had been delivered to his region, ITAR-TASS reported. That agency also reported that Kemerovo has still not transferred 75 million rubles ($ 2.6 million) from the sale of U.S. food assistance to the federal Pension Fund, as was originally agreed. (back to top) 11 Russian Nuclear Sub Wreck in Norwegian Sea Harmless--Experts ITAR-TASS News Agency, March 30, 2000 Vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolai Laverov on Thursday told here a press conference that Russian nuclear submarine Komsomolets, which had sunk in the Norwegian sea on April 7, 1989, would pose no ecologic threat to the environment in the next 10-15 years. All the compartments with nuclear components were reported to be sealed off, while the submarine had got seated on the bedrock at the depth of 1700 metres. At present, Russian and Norwegian experts continue with environmental monitoring of the shipwreck area near Medvezhy island. The research is being pursued from board a Russian research ship Mstislav Keldysh. (back to top) 12 Russian Research Reactors Unsafe: Government Inspector Agence France Presse, March 28, 2000 Russian nuclear research reactors are potentially dangerous because of a lack of finance to maintain them, a top inspection official said Tuesday. Interfax new agency quoted Yuri Vishnevsky, head of the government nuclear inspectorate, as saying: "There is practicaly no longer any money to maintain research reactors. "Staff are deserting research centres, and nuclear waste is not being recycled." Vishnevsky said the reactors were potentially dangerous and could cause local accidents. Russia has 112 research reactors, including 30 which have been operational for at least 30 years, according to the nuclear inspectorate. In 1999, 90 incidents were recorded involving research reactors. Earlier this month, Russia's environment protection chief Viktor Danilov-Danilian mooted the idea of importing and storing foreign nuclear waste to earn money to clear damage to Russia's environment caused by its own nuclear power. But Russian activists with the Greenpeace environmental watchdog oppose the scheme, warning of the possibility of a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster in neighbouring Ukraine. Last December, a St Petersburg military tribunal acquitted a Russian ex-naval officer of treason for exposing details of nuclear pollution. Alexander Nikitin had faced a possible 12-year jail term for exposing unsafe nuclear waste habits of Russia's dilapidating Northern Fleet. (back to top) 13 Russia Registered 16,000 Nuclear Safety Violations in 1999 ITAR-TASS News Agency, March 28, 2000 There have been over 16,000 violations of safety standards in the Russian nuclear energy sector last year, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a board meeting of the State Nuclear Inspection on Tuesday. "Zero risk does not exist in the nuclear energy industry. Last year, over 16,000 violations of rules in the field of nuclear energy have been revealed and ordered to be abolished," he said. Shoigu said work of the State Nuclear Inspection had resulted in better documentation of nuclear safety violations over the recent years. "At the same time, acute problems related to utilization of 140 decommissioned submarines, transportation of 535 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel, construction of a nuclear waste storage, of installations for the processing and storage of radioactive waste do not abolish concern of the Russian government over the condition of nuclear safety," Shoigu said. He cited statistics of nuclear incidents and accidents in the former Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, a total of 385 in which 684 people were affected. Of these, 338 people developed radiation sickness and 56 died. The latest fatality occurred in 1997 at the Federal Nuclear Center, formerly known as Arzamas-16. Shoigu said the Russian Nuclear Power Ministry, State Nuclear Inspection and Defense Ministry should implement joint measures to improve radiation safety. The starting ground for this work will be the federal programme Nuclear and Radiation Safety of Russia for 2000-2006. He said a public watchdog group could be set up in the form of a science and technology or methodology council to monitor the nuclear energy sector. (back to top) 14 Over 120,000 New Cases of Tuberculosis Registered in Russia in 1999 Interfax News Agency, March 27, 2000 With 123,403 new cases of tuberculosis registered in 1999, Russia now occupies the 11th place among countries hardest hit by the disease, the Russian Health Ministry announced at a Monday news conference. A steady increase in the number of tubercular patients has been recorded since 1991, the Health Ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. By the end of 1998, there were 76 tubercular patients per 100,000 people in Russia. At the same time, Russian and WHO experts point out that the increase in the number of tubercular patients and the corresponding death rate is not just Russia's problem. As early as in 1993, WHO declared tuberculosis a universally dangerous disease. According to WHO, the death rate from tuberculosis is higher than that of any other disease. The worst situation in Russia is witnessed in penitentiaries, where the number of tubercular cases is 60 times higher than Russia's average. After the forthcoming amnesty, Russian penitentiaries will release some 4,000 tubercular patients, the Health Ministry and the Ministry of Justice have said. About half of them can pass on pathogenic organisms resistant to treatment. In an effort to intensify the fight against tuberculosis in Russia, a comprehensive federal program on urgent measures to prevent tuberculosis in Russia from 1995-2004 was adopted in 1998. The program is aimed at stabilizing the epidemic tuberculosis situation in the country and reducing the disease rate to 50 cases per 100,000 people (the epidemic threshold) and a cutting the death rate from tuberculosis to 12 cases per 100,000 people. In 1999, the Russian government allocated about$ 60 million for anti-tuberculosis measures. (back to top) REDfiles subscription information: To subscribe, send an e-mail message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with "subscribe redfiles" in message body; to unsubscribe, send to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with "unsubscribe redfiles" in body. REDfiles is distributed free-of-charge and is for personal use only. The Transboundary Environmental Information Agency (TEIA) welcomes your comments to Elena Vassilieva at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. =========================== Note: these issues are available in htm-format. If you prefer this format subscribe on REDfiles directly. 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