Pulp and Paper Enterprise Stakes On Purification
Baikal TsBK Pulp and Paper Enterprise (BTsBK; Oleg Deripaska’s Continental Management Holding) stands ready to halt production by order of Rosprirodnadzor, the environmental watchdog of Russia. The enterprise will lose roughly $50 million because of a few idle months. After the shutdown, 16,000 residents of Baikalsk will have neither heat nor light till the spring, and the damage caused to the Lake of Baikal will be of even greater extent.
At the end of past week, Continental Management Holding sent to Irkutsk region’s governor, Security Council, regional branches of Rosprirodnadzor, Emergency Ministry and local prosecutors the notifications of its readiness to halt BTsBK by demand of Rosprirodnadzor.
After the shutdown, the management of the enterprise warned, the sewage disposal plant of the enterprise will no longer intake the waste water of Baikalsk, the Heating Power Plant will be halted as well and the supplies of heating and electric energy to the city will end. The workers will be forced to take vacation followed by staff reduction. The enterprise could be re-launched no sooner than the temperature is stable above zero. It was -10°C in Baikalsk yesterday.
The water use license of BTsBK expired November 3, and the enterprise has been illegally polluting Baikal ever since. Rosprirodnadzor Deputy Chief Oleg Mitvol ordered it to halt production, estimating the damage caused to Baikal at 475 million rubles. The officials demand from BTsBK to shift to in-plant recycling, which the enterprise doesn’t have now, they allege.
But the in-plant recycling facilities at BTsBK were ready for launch far back in June, said Continental Management General Director Andrei Voloshin. The system hasn’t been put into operation “as the sewage disposal plant of the enterprise filters the city’s waste water and, as a result of in-plant recycling, the city’s sewage runoff will directly flow to the lake.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 11, 2007
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