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FIGHTING TO SAVE BAIKAL'S PURE WATER



Scientist Mikhail Grachev spent a decade studying the natural wonders of Siberia's Lake Baikal - so ancient and isolated its water is acclaimed as among the purest in the world. Last year he helped open a factory to bottle the lake water and sell it.

 

For Grachev, the commercial venture is an attempt to combine Russia's economic transformation with environmental preservation: to save the world's oldest and deepest lake by making money from it. Although the bottling plant for drinking water is not yet a financial success, the scientist hopes that it will safeguard the 640 kilometre-long lake from growing manmade threats.

 

Lake Baikal, with 20 percent of the world's supply of fresh water, was long protected by its remote location north of Mongolia. But today, its legendary purity and unique life forms are under attack from industrial pollution, illegal logging and untreated sewage. Cherished by Russians as the "Jewel of Siberia," Lake Baikal is like an inland sea, with the world's only species of freshwater seals, a complex system of self-purification and hot water vents that nurture life in the deep. Environmentalists worry that the lake's ecosystem may not be able to survive the chemical onslaught for many more years. No one is sure how much longer the lake can take this pressure.

 

Among the two dozen scientific expeditions to the lake each year, a team of US, Russian and Japanese experts, has begun taking core samples from the lake bottom. An earlier 195-meter-long sample provided a geological record dating back more than 2.5 million years. This winter, they hope to extract sediment dating back more than 5 million years. Scientists can use the sediment to study the pace of evolution and compare it with climatic change. Lake Baikal supports more than 2,500 species - including 960 kinds of animals and 400 plants found only here.

 

The most visible symbol of Baikal's degradation stands on its southern shore: the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill. Although the mill, a former military factory, filters the tons of waste water it pours into Baikal every day, enough toxic chemicals reach the lake to kill creatures in a contaminated zone about a square kilometre and a half. The mill, with its 30-уeаг-old equipment, is nearing the end of its life span, but its managers and workers are eager to keep the mill open so they can continue working and living in Baikalsk.

 

In an attempt to save both the mill and the lake, the US Agency for International Development paid the US company and Grachev's institute to draft a plan for rebuilding the factory. Under the proposal, the mill would switch to a nonchlorine manufacturing process - eliminating dioxin, waste water and the burning of coal. The biggest drawback of the project is its $600 million price.

 

Experts agree that in the long run, the best way to protect the lake and provide jobs is to develop ecologically sensitive tourism. If Russia and foreign investors had enough money to spend, they could create a world-class tourist centre with new roads, lake-shore hotels, docks and ski resorts.

 

 

Grammar work

A Complete the sentences with Infinitive, ing-form or ed-form of the verb according to the sense.

1. The main idea of the (study) the natural wonders of Siberia's Lake Baikal by scientist Mikhail Grachev was to intensify the geological prospecting for natural resources.

2. Scientific searches have (provide) core samples from the lake bottom (date) back more than 5 million years.

3. The best way (protect) the lake and provide jobs is (develop) ecologically sensitive tourism.

 

4. Then there is the vast human and industrial pollution (generate) by the densely (populate) coasts stretching from Strait of Gibraltar to the heel of Italy.

5. Along the Yugoslav and Greek coastline there are fewer industrial and population centres, but the situation is (get) worse there, too.







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