-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- Russian Environmental Digest (REDfiles) is a compilation of the week's major English-language press on environmental issues in Russia. 13 - 19 March 2000, Vol. 2, No. 11 1. Greenpeace Protests Proposed Route of the Baltic Pipeline System 2. Smog Triggers Restrictions in Kemerovo 3. Kola Nuclear Power Plant Allowed to Re-Start 2nd Reactor 4. Russia to Continue Cooperation with US in Nuclear Safety 5. Troubled Lands: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Destruction, Published on Web 6. Environmentalist Nikitin Is Back in The Spotlight 7. Russian, Swedish Officials Discuss Environmental Problems 8. Nuclear Waste: Russia Plans to Store Others' Spent Fuel � 1 Greenpeace Protests Proposed Route of the Baltic Pipeline System The St. Petersburg Times, March 17, 2000 Local Greenpeace supporters are warning that the long-awaited Baltic Pipeline System, which is planned to pass north of St. Petersburg on its way to the Gulf of Finland, will destroy an already ecologically sensitive region and threaten the water supplies of the city if its course is not changed. Greenpeace, whose local activists held a protest in front of the headquarters of the federal government's St. Petersburg offices on Tuesday, believes that an alternate route for the pipeline, or BPS, should be chosen so that the fragile ecosystem of the Karelian isthmus is not turned into an industrial zone, and so that local rivers and forests are not endangered in the pipeline's construction and use. The 2,400-kilometer BPS is set to run between St. Petersburg and Lake Ladoga on its way north, passing underneath the Neva, Volkhov, Mga and Chyornaya rivers on its way to Primorsk, 150 kilometers from the city. A port is due to be constructed there beginning in April, officials from the Leningrad Oblast administration said Thursday, Interfax reported. The start of construction of the BPS, which had been slated for the end of March or early April, will be announced within a week, said Fuel and Energy Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny on Tuesday. The pipeline will give Russian oil direct access to the Baltic Sea for the first time since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, keeping inside Russia revenues currently paid to foreign ports. But Greenpeace says that the location of Primorsk was a bad choice because of high winds, winter ice, a jagged coastline and shallow waters, making it difficult for tankers to navigate safely. "We're not against the project as a whole - we understand that for economic reasons Russia needs to export its oil and gas through Russia and not the Baltics," said Oganes Targulian, a member of Greenpeace's Moscow office. "What we're against is that the pipeline will be built close to local water supplies, directly endangering the city in the event of an accident. But Greenpeace may be too late to affect the pipeline's construction. St. Petersburg officials deny that the project will be harmful to the environment, citing their own ecological study attesting to its feasibility, and questioning the late involvement of Greenpeace in an approval process that has already lasted three years. "Any project will always have an environmental impact, regardless of what it is," said Sergei Ermolov, deputy head of the State Environmental Committee of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast. "If Greenpeace doesn't like the pipeline, it should have gotten involved a long time ago and come to our monthly meetings when we started discussing it." Greenpeace maintains, however, that the government has been particularly close-fisted in the last year with information about the project, and has been trying to ram the BPS through its last stages without public consent so as to avoid any outcry against the plan. "Whenever we ask people what they think about the pipeline, the majority of them answer that they know absolutely nothing about it. Then when we explain it to them, they usually are astonished that something so environmentally dangerous will be built," said Dmitry Artamonov, chairman of the St. Petersburg Society of Greenpeace Supporters, an independent group separate from Greenpeace international. He also pointed out that officials have ignored the State Environmental Protection Committee's 1999 impact study of the pipeline, in which it recommended that alternative routes for the pipeline be found. But local officials pointed out that the route chosen for the pipeline was the best and most environmentally sound, according to their studies. "The Leningrad Oceanic Research Institute studied the plan for several years and concluded that Primorsk was the most convenient for use as a port," said Sergei Gorbunev head of the City Sanitary Control and Expertise Department, or Sanepidnadzor. Construction of the BPS has been mired in difficulty since 1997 when the initial decision to build it was made. The government only gave its official go-ahead in mid-February this year. The pipeline will link Primorsk to oil deposits in western Siberia and the northern Timan Pechora region. (back to top) 2 Smog Triggers Restrictions in Kemerovo BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, March 17, 2000 Excerpts from report by Russian NTV on 11th March A sharp deterioration of the environmental situation related to pollution has been registered in Kemerovo. Air samples taken in the town have revealed a tenfold increase in the concentration of poisonous substances. The local authorities have already introduced restrictions on the work of industrial enterprises. It is possible that the use of vehicles in the city will also be restricted. [Correspondent] The environmentalists have said that there is an emergency situation in Kemerovo. Smog consisting of sulphur, carbon and nitrogen compounds covers the city... The latest tests have showed that the concentration of some poisonous substances in the air is 7-8 and in some places 10 times higher than the limit... The smog affects the health of Kemerovo residents negatively. More people are coming to the polyclinics complaining of headaches and shortness of breath. Every day ambulance staff register 60-70 more calls than usual. [Valeriy Pavlov, deputy head of the city administration] I would like to ask older people who suffer from shortness of breath and other respiratory and cardiovascular diseases to stay indoors if possible. [Correspondent] Apart from that, the city authorities have asked car owners to avoid travelling by car across the city. If the situation does not improve, the traffic in Kemerovo might be stopped by a special regulation of the city administration. All city enterprises are working now to a special regime. Those who break the special rules will be fined. (back to top) 3 Kola Nuclear Power Plant Allowed to Re-Start 2nd Reactor ITAR-TASS News Agency, March 15, 2000 The Kola nuclear power plant in northern European Russia has been allowed to re-start its second reactor, the press service of the Rosenergoatom consortium said on Wednesday. "At present, all exposed troubles are removed, and pre-start operations are in progress at the reactor," the press service told Itar-Tass. The launch is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. The radiation level at the plant has not changed and still equals zero on the INES scale, the service added. The reactor was stopped early on Tuesday after its automatic control and protection system went off. (back to top) 4 Russia to Continue Cooperation with US in Nuclear Safety ITAR-TASS News Agency, March 15, 2000 The Russian government has decided to extend the term of an agreement with the US on technical data exchange on safety of nuclear ammunition for another five years until July 1, 2005, a source in the government told Tass on Wednesday. The agreement was signed in Moscow on December 15, 1994 at a meeting of the Russian-American commission for economic cooperation set up in line with the 1993 Vancouver declaration. The scope of commission's activities initially covered energy, outer space and high technologies. It was replenished later on by private business development, conversion, environment and health care. The commission established committees made both of Russian and American specialists to oversee each of these areas. Russia and the United States take turns in hosting the commission's biannual sessions. (back to top) 5 Troubled Lands: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Destruction, Published on Web http://www.rand.org/centers/cre/troubledlands/ The RAND Center for Russia and Eurasia has published the book__Troubled Lands: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Destruction__ on the web (in PDF format) at the address above. The book covers a range of environmental conditions as well as environmental politics and policy at the time of the demise of the USSR. While much has changed since the book was first came out in hard copy in 1993, I believe it still serves as a useful lens for understanding the state of the Soviet Union at its endpoint, and as a benchmark for measuring progress (or the lack thereof) in environmental protection and natural resources management in the Newly Independent States since then. DJ Peterson Associate Policy Analyst RAND Center for Russia and Eurasia Santa Monica, California 90407-2138, phone +1 310.393.0411x7611, fax +1 310.451.7036 (back to top) 6 Environmentalist Nikitin Is Back in The Spotlight Agency WPS (What the Papers Say), March 14, 2000 Trud, February 14, 2000 Not so long ago the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office cleared Nikitin of charges of espionage, putting an end to the five-year long investigation of Nikitin's cooperation with the Norwegian environmental organization Belluna. Soon afterwards Nikitin applied for a foreign travel passport and was denied. His lawyers filed a protest with the Supreme Court demanding revocation of the decision of the prosecutor's office. The Supreme Court will rule in May, and until then Nikitin cannot travel abroad. (back to top) 7 Russian, Swedish Officials Discuss Environmental Problems ITAR-TASS News Agency, March 14, 2000 Commander of the Leningrad military district Colonel-General Valentin Bobryshev and Chairman of the Swedish Riksdag (parliament) Birgitta Dahl discussed on Monday various aspects of an exchange of experience in a number of directions of a military character and problems of environmental protection during military activities. The Russian commander arrived in Sweden at the invitation of Commander of the northern military district of Sweden Lieutenant- General Mertil Melin. Valentin Bobryshev informed Birgitta Dahl of the situation in Chechnya stating that Russian servicemen have been carrying out struggle not against civilians but against terrorist formations. The conflict in Chechnya must be settled as soon as possible and by political methods, the speaker of the Swedish parliament emphasised. On the same day Valentin Bobryshev flew to the north of Sweden, to the city of Lulea, the administrative centre of the Norrbottens county. (back to top) 8 Nuclear Waste: Russia Plans to Store Others' Spent Fuel Greenwire, March 13, 2000 The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry (Minatom) plans to import 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel during the next 10 years from Asian and European countries for storage and eventual reprocessing in Siberia. According to documents obtained by Greenpeace from anti-nuclear activists in Russia, Minatom hopes to earn $21 billion from the plan by capitalizing on the worldwide shortage of secure sites for spent nuclear fuel and unmet demand from countries such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany and Switzerland. Under the plans, "which appear to have been drafted last fall and bear the signature of Deputy Minister Valentin Ivanov," spent fuel would be transported to Russia by road and rail, and by barge through the country's river system. Reprocessing would begin in 2020 after completion of a plant in Ozersk, "which already has the reputation of being one of the most polluted places on the planet." The plan calls for a reserve of about $3 billion to pay for related ecological problems. The plan "has alarmed environmental groups, which argue that Russia risks being turned into a nuclear dumping ground for richer countries." (Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, March 11). (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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