Russia’s Lake Baikal Threatened by Major Zinc Mine

A Russian mining company is planning to develop the world’s third-largest lead and zinc deposit in a watershed flowing directly into Russia’s Lake Baikal. Environmental activists, and even Moscow’s pro-development Natural Resources Ministry, contend that mining the enormous Kholodninskoye deposit poses a direct threat to the 400-mile-long lake, a pristine body of water that holds 20 percent of the world’s above-ground freshwater supplies. The Natural Resources Ministry has proposed that only half of the deposit be mined, while environmentalists argue that the project be scrapped because toxic wastes from the mining process would eventually flow into the lake, much of whose shoreline is a protected nature preserve. The mine, located in the Republic of Buryatia roughly 40 miles northeast of the lake, is to be developed by MBC resources, a subsidiary of Russia’s Metropol Group.