Putin criticized for letting Baikal plant open

"To allow chemical wastes to be dumped there: what else can you call it but a crime?" Vazhenkov, head of Greenpeace's Lake campaign said.

MOSCOW, January 19, 2010 (AFP) - A decree by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin allowing a controversial paper plant near Siberia's pristine Lake Baikal to reopen is a "crime", environmental group Greenpeace said Tuesday.

Putin's decree, which was made public on Monday, reverses an earlier ban on the production of cellulose paper and storage of waste around Lake Baikal, the world's deepest freshwater lake.

It is expected to allow operations to restart at the Baikal paper plant, owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, which has been closed since October 2008.

"This decree is a crime because to protect the interests of one particular oligarch, Putin is casting aside Russia's entire net of ecological laws," Roman Vazhenkov, head of Greenpeace's Lake Baikal campaign, told AFP.

"To allow chemical wastes to be dumped there: what else can you call it but a crime?" he added.

Lake Baikal, which is on UNESCO's World Heritage list, contains 20 percent of the world's fresh water supply and has been hailed as the "Galapagos of Russia" for its unique flora and fauna.

Generations of environmental activists have fought for the closure of the Soviet-era paper mill, founded in 1966, which they say endangers Baikal's fragile ecosystem by spewing waste into the lake.

But the plant is also an economic boon to the region, and 16,000 employees were cut loose when it was forced to shut in October 2008, driven bankrupt by the global economic crisis.

Environmentalists had worried the aged plant could be reopened in August when Putin, in a surprise stunt, plumbed the lake's depths aboard a mini-submarine and declared it "ecologically clean".

The Russian government has taken numerous measures to shore up the struggling Soviet-era industry and halt mass job losses, amid fears that social unrest could spread in economically hard-hit regions.

Metals tycoon Deripaska had been Russia's richest man before the financial crisis but saw his fortune decimated by the slowdown.