A living system, Baikal, like all lakes, is wholly integrated with its surrounding territory, especially its watershed, through which rivers and streams flow, filling its bowl to overflowing via a single outlet – the beautiful river Angara.

As a result of the human impact, mainly over the last 35-40 years, changes are already being noted in the lake's biota. Protection of the lake's sensitive and unique ecosystems, that have been evolving over 25 million years, has concerned Russia's conservationists for almost half a century, since the building of the first pulp and paper mill on its shores in the 1960s. This started an environmental movement that, despite all the difficulties of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, is alive and kicking to this day.

Now, again, alarm is being voiced because of wildly ambitious plans to construct two oil pipelines that would encircle the lake, at varying distances, in a ring of hot crude oil. This prospect chills the soul of anyone privileged enough to have had the 'Baikal experience'.

In the present case, it is the second largest Russian oil company, "YUKOS", that plans to construct a 1500 km pipeline to China, and the state pipeline monopoly, "Transneft", with an even more ambitious scheme to build one of 3765 km to the Russian Far East.

The deep rift valley containing the lake is an area of constant seismic activity, with quakes of up to 7 or 8 degrees on the Richter scale occurring in places. High mountain ranges, marshes, permafrost, landslides, floods and forest fires will make breaks in a pipeline system almost inevitable. The proposed pipelines would pass through many very sparsely populated and unpopulated areas, difficult and at times impossible to get to quickly in the case of an accident. Apart from the risk of a major accident, there remains the fact that contemporary leak-detection technology is not capable of revealing small leaks that can continue for years, with enormous losses, into the environment, as was revealed in Delaware where a 12-year leak was detected in 2000.

The preliminary YUKOS project documents admit that, as all the alternative pipeline routes proposed cross 59 tributaries of Lake Baikal, there is a probability that crude oil will reach the lake, if an accident occurs. The same documents give estimates of the time it would take for oil to reach the lake itself as anything from one hour to three days, depending on the eventual route of the pipeline and point of the spill. That is, given a specific rate of flow in the rivers. During spring floods this rate increases dramatically. It also admits "The probability of an accident on the oil pipeline is quite real, as analysis of similar accidents on Transneft lines shows". It is pointed out that the interval between the onset of an accident and the start of action to localise or overcome it usually varies from a few hours to a few days.

Increased safety measures would raise costs considerably. As for all monster projects, the initial estimate of 1192 million US dollars, for the YUKOS project, is most likely destined to prove unrealistic. The original estimate for the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline (1288 km long) was something like $900 million but the eventual cost was closer to 8 billion US dollars! In Alaska, costs were pushed up because of pressure from a strong environmental movement on the companies involved to use state-of-the-art technology taking into consideration a wide range of environmental issues. But will all possible safety measures be taken in Siberia? Both private companies and the state authorities are more adept at ignoring the demands of environmentalists and local people here than in the US. And can one assume that great changes have taken place in the general level of environmental awareness and management of the staff of the Russian companies?

Unfortunately, studies of the existing situation in the oil industry indicate that this is unlikely in the near future.

The report of the independent consulting firm IWACO BV for Water and the Environment commissioned by Greenpeace to assess the impact of the oil industry in West Siberia, June 2001, lists major dangers as follows: inadequate emergency planning and equipment, inadequate environmental management measures in normal operational practices, operational errors and negligence by oil company personnel, low awareness and education of environmental impacts of operations, lack of environmental management systems, inadequate remediation measures for spills to soil and water, under-investment in equipment and use of out-dated or unsuitable equipment. According to World Bank reports, Russia's pipelines are prone to leaks and other accidents due to intensive corrosion. They are often poorly constructed, of low quality and poorly maintained, with trunk pipeline systems often not corresponding to modern, international requirements. In the section of the present Transneft mainline oil pipe from Krasnoyarsk to the Angarsk petrochemical plant alone there have been 6 accidents involving crude oil spills over the past 10 years, with over 40 thousand tons of crude oil spilt into the environment!

As yet, there are no Russian state regulations for the safety of mainline pipe systems. The law on trunk pipelines, supposed to be passed in 1997, has not gone through. Furthermore, there exist so-called 'norms' for "natural loss" of oil and oil products into the environment during transportation in mainline pipes, which indicates that certain losses would not even be investigated or considered violations.

According to a 1998 report of the Russian State Committee for Environmental Protection, the number of accidents in mainline pipelines rose from 62 in 1996 to 78 in 1997 due to corrosion, a reduction in the number of overhauls, the absence of diagnostics of the technical state of the pipelines, poorly planned transportation routes, incorrect pipeline pressure and inadequately qualified personnel.

So, however much one might like to believe that improvements are on the way, it is best to be on the side of caution. In recent years, a pithy saying to the effect that 'Intentions were of the best, but everything turned out as usual' has gained general fame for its bitter humour and exact reflection of reality in Russia today. However, here, supporters of the project (amongst scientists hoping to get a contract and representatives of local authorities) speak of the need for state-of-the-art technology and of the possibility of its realisation as naively as if they had never heard it.

One of the few arguments put forward by these supporters and the companies themselves is that, allegedly, the region will benefit from the taxes paid by the oil and pipeline companies for use of the land. What the foundations are for this argument is still not clear, as, according to the latest Russian Tax Code, taxes from oil pipelines do not go to regional budgets, but only to Moscow. How Moscow will decide to spend this money is as yet not documented, so there is no guarantee that the region will benefit at all from these massive construction projects.

Another argument put forward by proponents of the projects is that they will create jobs. However, the actual number of jobs created for local people will not be very significant as they lack the necessary skills. YUKOS estimates 2971 jobs will be created during construction work and1690 for servicing its pipeline.

Besides the hazards of spills, the projects will open up enormous areas of virgin forests to illegal logging and hunting. These, together with increased numbers of forest fires, inevitably take place when oil industry brigades and geologists move in to survey, clear and construct in Russia's taiga, according to a Bankwatch Network publication, "Oil Drilling and the Environment in Russia", Kiev 2001. This is of particular concern in a region that makes up part of the few remaining centres of 'ecological stabilisation' of the planet in the northern hemisphere.

The impact of these projects will be experienced first and foremost by people living in the immediate area of the pipes and their pumping and service stations. There is particular concern that the 'pipeline mentality' and all that goes with its construction and upkeep will irreversibly change the way of life and culture of indigenous peoples through whose territory they are planned to pass. During the public hearing on the YUKOS project held in the beautiful Tunka valley in Buryatia, threatened by the company's pipeline, strong opposition to the project was voiced amongst local citizens. Here the clash of two worldviews was vividly illustrated. On the one side, villagers and Buddhist monks, speaking in their own language expressing lack of trust towards YUKOS's promises, fears that incoming workers would not respect the natural environment, fear for their National park and sacred places, traditional way of life, and the forest with all it gives the local people and on which they depend. On the other, a polished Muskovite expressing distress and shame at the fact that his fellow citizens should make a livelihood out of hunting, fishing, picking berries, nuts and mushrooms, and a plot of land. The narrowness of such a worldview would be shocking, if it were not so widespread.

The YUKOS management actually refused to hold a public hearing in one district despite invitations to do so by the local administration. It is known that there is strong opposition to the planned pipeline amongst the local people here too. The district is now preparing to hold a referendum on the issue.

Russian law actually protects national parks, banning the construction of roads and mainline pipelines, as these, naturally, would defeat the purpose of a park's existence. This does not deter YUKOS, despite the fact that it aspires to a respectable image. The oil company proposes three alternative routes to the west and south of Lake Baikal – one actually crossing the World Heritage Site boundary, and two through the Tunkinsky National Park! To avoid breaking the law, they simply plan to change the boundaries of the park!

For local environmentalists these projects present a 'test case' for Russian environmental law and its protection of citizens' rights. The environmental law enforcement agency is in ruins after its submergence into the Ministry for Natural Resources a year and a half ago. It is still to be seen if any remnant of environmental law enforcement in the country remains. Staff of the state environmental monitoring service has been drastically cut so that it is now at best erratic - almost non-existent. There is little hope that state authorities will fulfil anything more than a nominally protective function.

According to Russian law, projects likely to have an impact on the environment must go through a process of public perusal and discussion before being submitted for a State Environmental Impact Assessment. The companies promoting projects must notify the public of hearings and make "full and reliable" information on the projects available to interested parties in good time. If NGOs so wish, a citizens' Impact Assessment can be organised and the State EIA must take its conclusions into consideration. The aim of all this is to avoid or minimise adverse impact on the environment, if the project is to go ahead at all.

So far it would appear that both companies regard the public discussion part of project development as an unavoidable formality that has to be orchestrated in such a way that the companies come out of it all with apparent public support. The approaches of the two companies differ considerably.

In terms of PR, the state company does not seem to be particularly concerned about winning support for its project. The Transneft hearings were exceptionally uninformative and the personnel very dismissive of public involvement. YUKOS, by comparison, is using all means to woo people to its cause. Apparently, YUKOS had concluded agreements on "informational services" with the major regional media, well in advance of the first public hearings. The result of this is that there is practically no public debate. The vast majority of reports or articles on the YUKOS project in the regional press are grossly one-sided. Indeed, it is only possible to publish 'alternative' articles in the main Irkutsk newspaper on payment of a considerable (for local environmentalists) fee. Interestingly enough, articles commenting on public hearings of the Transneft project underline the arguments of environmentalists criticising the company, while the same environmentalists and their arguments do not even figure in articles on YUKOS hearings! At the same time, the proponents of both projects never fail to remind their audiences that environmental organisations are being financed by foreign foundations or government agencies, and that their members have to earn their bread, as it were…

In the case of both companies, the hearings involve infringements of the law relating to announcements of hearings and availability of information that environmentalists are drawing attention to and will use when necessary. A citizens' environmental impact assessment of the YUKOS project has just started, attracting the unprecedented attention of parties supporting it. As yet all is quiet on the Transneft front.

Against the environmentalists is the weight of the present government policy of developing strategic trade relations between Russia and China. As an article in the Asia Times, June 26, 2002, says, the Angarsk-Daqing pipeline project is considered significant because it may open the way for further contracts between the two countries in the area of energy development: "Russia, which sits on a quarter of the world's natural-gas reserves, is looking to gain access to the Chinese market via a huge multibillion-dollar pipeline project designed to export Siberian gas."

Fears that if one pipeline is ploughed through the Lake Baikal basin, others will follow it, are well founded. The region could be on its way to losing its main resources – the purity of its natural environment and integrity of its culture.