On March 15, the Court of Kirovsky District of Irkutsk city ordered to stop building the chinese facility, where was planned to produce bottled water for drinking. This decision was made thanks to a claim from the environmental prosecutor’s office, which is up to that is starting verifying the infringement of the next legal acts of Russian Federation: “About Environmental Protection” and “About Production Wastes”.
Experts that involved in the checking of that facility found traces of petroleum products on its territory, and also a large amount of industrial waste. The checking also found that the facility did not have permission to carry out excavation work on the removal of soil for the further arrangement of trenches.
Before this, users created in Net an electronic petition, the text of which called for an «immediate stop the facility construction». Despite having crossed over a million the number of people who signed the petition, the authorities refrained from making any comments.
However, after the start of growing public dissatisfaction, Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, commenting the situation around the construction of the Chinese facility, he promised to commit to the responsible authority to inspect the Chinese company according to “the highest environmental standards”.
«The question about water bottling facility construction is very important. It is important not to allow the conditions, which will worsen the ecological situation on the Baikal Lake. Given that people are concerned, I will give an instruction to check, does everything meet environmental standards», noted Dmitry Medvedev.
Andrei Peshkov, the Honored Ecologist of Russia, commented the construction of the facility too. The expert reminded что that more than 200 countries agreed on the need to protect the largest freshwater reservoir.
“Baikal Lake is a national treasure and a world heritage treasure. It cannot be recreated, but it is possible to harm him”, he explained in an interview with Nation News.
