Baikal TsBK (pulp and paper mill)

 production, closed

After decades of campaigning, environmentalists in Russia are celebrating the closure of a notorious factory controlled by the billionaire Oleg Deripaska that pumped toxic waste into Lake Baikal.

Since it was built more than four decades ago the Baikalsk paper and pulp mill has allegedly run off thousands of tonnes of dioxin and other harmful byproducts into the world's deepest lake.

Generations of activists had seemed powerless to stop the pollution, but yesterday the mill announced it was halting production and laying off 1,400 workers.

Pressure from activists forced the mill to transfer to a "closed-water" system in September, cutting waste discharge into the lake. A spokesman said that change had contributed to the closure because the factory could no longer produce bleached pulp, its most profitable export. The global economic crisis had also hit margins.

Roman Vazhenkov, head of Greenpeace Russia's Baikal programme, said the closure was a "historic moment".

Lake Baikal - often called the Pearl of Siberia - is a Unesco world heritage site, which holds around 20% of the world's fresh water.

A campaign to close the paper mill at Baikalsk on the lake's southern tip started in earnest during perestroika when some of the Soviet Union's first free public movements united around environmental protests.

"Waste from this factory poisoned and caused genetic mutations in many of Baikal's endemics - the hundreds of types of fauna and flora that are unique to this place," said Marina Rikhvanova, head of Baikal Environmental Wave. "Now the lake can begin to heal itself."

Engineers must seal a toxic pond under the factory which is leaking, but Baikal's self-cleaning ecosystem will help to save the lake. Billions of tiny crustaceans known as epishura constantly filter out algae and bacteria, cleansing the water.

The mill's future will remain under review until February, but it is expected to stay closed permanently.

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/12/pollution-wa...