The State of Soviet Ecology

An Interview with Maria V. Cherkesova

Environmentalists in the Soviet Union claim that pollution there is much worse than in the West. The horror stories include rivers catching on fire, harvests being poisoned by nuclear radiation and pink snow falling as a result of pollution. A growing environmental movement, however, is seeking to block environmentally unsound development and wants those responsible for polluting to be punished.
Recently, a Soviet delegation comprised of government bureaucrats charged with doing something about the pollution problem met in Washington with EPA Chief William Reilly and other agency officials. Tagging along with the official Soviet delegation was Maria V. Cherkasova, representing the handful of environmental groups currently gaining recognition in the USSR.
Cherkasova is Secretary of the Socio-Ecological Union (SEU), the largest of the Soviet environmental organizations. SEU is an umbrella group with 200 branches, mainly in the Russian republic. The group believes that ecological problems can be solved only through political and legal change in the USSR.
Simultaneous translation for this interview was conducted by Vladimir Klimenko.

Some of our cities are being transformed into gas chambers MULTINATIONAL MONITOR: What is the purpose of your organization?
MARIA CHERKASOVA: First of all, survival--our environmental problem is extremely bad. The first and most primitive problem standing before us is the problem of mere physical survival. There are many regions in our country where it is just absolutely physically impossible to live. We work for the preservation of a healthy environment for life and the restoration of life in those places where life has become difficult or impossible, and for the preservation of species variety on the planet. All of our neighbors on the planet, by this I mean animals and plants, have the same right to life under the sun as we do.
MM: Who are the major polluters there?
CHERKASOVA: It is difficult to name the main polluter. On the whole, the main polluter is our system--the system which over the course of 70 years has run our country, the terrible, inhumane system. Its central principle is one of total industrialization and the virtual elimination of agriculture, including the construction of gigantic complexes of all kinds-- industrial plants, dams, hydroelectric stations. The system obtains a huge amount of natural resources and tries to exploit a huge amount of raw material, and as a result produces a colossal amount of waste materials.
Our group was organized recently, and there are some new currents under way in connection with perestroika. Through these developments, our arguments had their founding point a year ago. But in a practical sense our movement started a long time ago, almost 30 years ago. It grew out of a student movement which began during the period of Khrushchev's fall.
MM: Did the original movement have anything to do with Lake Baikal?
CHERKASOVA: It was just about 30 years ago that we first brought up the issue of Lake Baikal. As a student, I participated in our protest conferences, but we were suppressed very quickly.
At that time the first major plant built at Baikal was producing tires for aircraft. Later it was reconstructed into the notorious pulp and paper mill on Baikal. The terrible thing was that it began producing cardboard for cardboard boxes and as a result emitted poisons into the water supply. To this day it continues belching smoke. Despite the many decrees issued, the situation has gotten worse. And a great many species have perished across the large surface that Lake Baikal occupies.
You've probably heard that the fauna on Lake Baikal is absolutely exceptional and unique. But rare species are being eliminated, and they are replaced by species that are widely seen everywhere else. In other words, the Baikal ecosystem is vanishing.
MM: Were any of the people responsible for polluting the lake held accountable in any way?
CHERKASOVA: Practically no one. The man who personally signed for the construction of the plant, a member of the Academy of Sciences remains an academician to this very day. He gets his salary, his special government "goody" packages, and maintains all of his privileges. The only thing that they do is try to keep him in the closet. Otherwise he lives a fantastic life.
MM: How do people perceive the Chernobyl nuclear disaster?
CHERKASOVA: Our organization just had its second congress in December, and we showed two films by our wonderful director, Rolanzo Giyencko (ph). He made a series of films about Chernobyl. The first was called "The Bell of Chernobyl," the second, "The Threshhold," the third, "For Whom the Bell Tolls," and the fourth, "The Bell Tolls for You." The last two films show the trial of the managers of the Chernobyl plant--the director and the chief engineer, the atomic physicist who worked there, and two or three other people who were accused of being responsible for the catastrophe that occurred. The films show the most important moments of trial, or at least everything that was allowed to be filmed. In fact, no one was allowed to film, so he did the impossible.
One of the films contains an interview with the physicist of the Chernobyl plant. He was already in a camp when they interviewed him, and he said that this accident would have happened in any case; it was almost pre-programmed as a result of a vicious circle involving the reactor design and the plant's construction.
Keep in mind that the last 20 years, the so-called period of stagnation or the Brezhnev period, was characterized by an extremely poor quality of production. Everything was constructed poorly. The accident, therefore, was predetermined. The only thing that this physicist could criticize himself for was that immediately after the accident he went into the reactor to look for two people left inside, and one of those people died.
The movie's last scenes are basically an analysis of the true culprits of this tragedy. They show a conference on Chernobyl with representatives from the ministry of health who cover up everything and in no way try to present the factual information. The worst thing is that they base their arguments on the experience of the International Atomic Energy Commission. The film shows consecutive shots of those sessions and of our doctors, and how they say the population there did not suffer, how everything is still wonderful. Our so-called scientists are out there on camera trying to convince everybody that everything is still fine.
At the same time, there are side-by-side cuts of people who actually suffered, people who are not being diagnosed for radiation illness. These people were told that they might suffer from anything else--from heart disease or stomach illnesses--but there is no admission that they became ill and died as a result of the nuclear accident.
We have now created a whole series of non-formal, non- governmental organizations, and there is a special Chernobyl group within the framework of our union, to tell the truth about what happened.
MM: What was the toll at Chernobyl in terms of people killed and injured, and in property damage?
CHERKASOVA: Unfortunately, I'm not able to speak about it off the top of my head. I can say, though, that the official assessments that we have represent a tiny fraction of what really happened. I think that the true degree of the damage cannot be defined at present. A tremendous amount of arable land, both in the Ukraine and in White Russia, was knocked out of production. And as a result of a tragic coincidence, the clouds carrying the radioactive materials settled at the headwaters of very important rivers. As a result of this, the contamination spread over a huge tract of land and reached the Black Sea.
MM: There is a movement among groups similar to yours in the United States demanding that justice be brought to those who pollute, that instead of the traditional "slap on the wrist" fines, polluters should go to jail. What are the chances for such a movement in the Soviet Union?
CHERKASOVA: We have begun doing this kind of work ourselves. Right now we have a program on a very worrisome issue, the issue of the construction of gas processing plants in western Siberia. We've got a special group working on this issue, and we work very closely with our People's Deputies. There are some very radical-minded people who are against this project. Thus far there is a stand-off, and the final documents for the construction of the plant have yet to be signed. However, our government insists on building this no matter what.
MM: Does the government want to expand the criminal code to cover ecological abuses?
CHERKASOVA: This is being done. In our delegation there is a lawyer who insists on having such concepts as environmental crimes included in our legal code.
MM: How close is that to reality?
CHERKASOVA: There is a great deal of resistance because our country is run by monopolies.
MM: What is your program with respect to protecting the environment through the legal system?
CHERKASOVA: First of all we need a law guaranteeing the right of citizens to live in environmentally safe conditions. We have no such guarantees, so our industries start building something in one place and then everyone feels that if one ministry started building something, and they've built up their infrastructure, then let the other ones go there and put in theirs.
MM: There are no zoning laws?
CHERKASOVA: No, practically nothing. Some of our cities are being transformed into gas chambers. So we need a law guaranteeing the rights of citizens to a healthy environment.
Secondly, we need strict requirements for environmental impact studies and veto rights, veto rights for unapproved projects.
I am the coordinator of our group's project in Khatang, which is one of the last natural wonders of our country. They plan to build a dam 200 meters high there. They have had three expert commissions review the project. We've participated in all of those commissions � it required a huge effort because they've almost started building the dam, even though the project has not been confirmed. It is a terribly dangerous project. A great deal of arsenic and mercury has been found in the area. Khatang is the source of the major Siberian river, and if the dam were to be built, all of the deposits would enter the water and flow down-river. This is a very real danger.
MM: This is naturally occurring mercury? CHERKASOVA: Yes. If you build a dam you create a reservoir, and the mercury deposits in the mountains will start to seep into the reservoir. Despite the fact that the project was rejected three times, and that for all practical purposes this is a pre-planned catastrophe, we were unable to fully reject it. In the spring, they are once again going to re-examine the possibility of the project.
MM: Are western chemical companies getting special deals to come to the Soviet Union?
CHERKASOVA: Yes. Basically, all foreign firms operating in the USSR do so under very favorable conditions. At present we are under grave danger as a result of the eagerness of many foreign companies, especially ones which have gone broke as a result of having environmentally unsound technologies.
Right now we have a very strong protest movement against the construction of mineral fertilizer plants producing Moroccan and Syrian phosphorus. On the Kola Peninsula we have some very high quality raw materials, but we export them and import raw materials into our country that are not sellable in any other part of the world, for example raw materials with a high radioactive con-tent.
This fall in Odessa we had a major protest in which local citizens simply did not allow boats carrying Syrian phosphates to be unloaded. The boats stayed there several weeks before leaving. Of course, the phosphorus was transferred to a train and ultimately reached its destination.
MM: What was wrong with the phosphorus? Was it contaminated?
CHERKASOVA: It wasn't phosphorus but the raw material for phosphorus. It had a high uranium content.
MM: Is the Soviet Union planning to impose controls on U.S. and European multinational corporations doing business there?
CHERKASOVA: Thus far, all we have is the beginning of a popular movement; we have no legislation. Recently, the Supreme Soviet issued a decree ordering certain extraordinary measures taken with regard to the environment. It included an article about how construction can-not be started without the approval of an expert commission. Up until now an expert commission has purely been a formal procedure � obviously they always work for their boss.
MM:What impact does your economic system have on the environment?
CHERKASOVA: There is a tremendous waste of natural resources, raw materials. The production of useful natural resources fuels industry which works only for itself � it mines more ore and so on to build huge excavation systems in order to excavate more ore in order to build more excavation systems. It's a completely illogical, vicious circle out of which people receive nothing.
One economist describes this policy as "auto-cannibalism." "Auto-cannibalism" requires a tremendous amount of energy, much of which is squandered, and secondly produces a tremendous amount of waste. In other words, to a large degree our country is simply a huge factory for the production of waste material which is dangerous not only for ourselves but for the rest of the world.
MM: Are you studying the kinds of regulatory and other controls we have here in the United States?
CHERKASOVA: Yes, there are people who do so. But of course we are doing less than we need to be doing. We have specialists who have an idea of your situation, but the gap between you and us is so great that your solutions are absolutely inapplicable to our situation.
At a recent televised press conference this question was asked of the deputy chairman of the environmental commission of the Soviet Union. The chairman there is just a bureaucrat, a regular party functionary. But the deputy is a good environmentalist, an expert. And at the press conference someone asked him, "Are you familiar with the type of legislation that they have in the U.S., antitrust legislation and other legislation?" He answered, "Yes, I know about it, but your laws don't work in our country. You can ask your government departments questions. We can't ask ours anything because they simply lie. Until they cease lying, we will say one thing and they will keep doing what they are doing."
We have this word that is now used based on a popular expression about a cat called Vaska. The cat hears what people say to him, but he goes on eating anyway. The word reflects the idea of an enterprise being told to do one thing and then doing what it wants to do anyway. ^

To a large degree our country is simply a huge factory for the production of waste material which is dangerous not only for ourselves but for the rest of the world.

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