Putin gives oil industry black eye over Blue Eye of Siberia

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin put the environment before financial profit yesterday, vetoing a controversial plan to build an oil pipeline just 800m from the shore of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest freshwater lake.

Russian ecologists had warned that the original plan was reckless and put the Unesco-listed lake known as the Blue Eye of Siberia at unacceptable risk.

The country's oil executives said an alternative, greener route as ordered by Putin could cost the Kremlin anything up to US$1 billion more than the current cost of US$11.5 billion.

Ecology-minded Russians had said the lake would be devastated in the event of an oil spill. Baikal holds 20 per cent of the planet's fresh water and is home to 1340 animal species and 570 plant species, many of them endemic.

Greenpeace estimated that a spill would pour 4000 tons of oil into the lake within 20 minutes and that one third of its surface would be irreparably polluted.

"If there is even the smallest, the tiniest chance of polluting Baikal, then we must think of future generations," the Russian President told Siberian governors. "We must do everything to make sure this danger is not just minimised, but eliminated."

He said the pipeline should be moved 40km to the north on the other side of a mountain ridge.

- INDEPENDENT