Mill under fire for polluting Lake Baikal

MOSCOW, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- A watchdog agency Tuesday criticized operators of a paper mill polluting Russia's Lake Baikal for saying 16,000 will lose home heating if it is forced to close.

"This is the only enterprise in the Russian Federation which, while failing to fulfill the norms of environmental laws, is using heating as a cover," said Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the agency, Rosprirodnadzor.

Mitvol imposed a five-day ban Monday on the dumping of waste into Lake Baikal from the Siberian pulp and paper plant. The company managing the plant responded by saying the shutdown could lead to the town of Baikalsk being left without heating because of the technology involved, RIA Novosti reported.

The watchdog agency plans to sue the plant for $19 million in damages for dumping waste into Lake Baikal, the world's deepest and largest freshwater lake, by volume, the Russian news agency said. The plant's license to operate expired last month.

The mill, which produces 200,000 metric tons of pulp and 12,000 metric tons of paper per year, is owned by the timber industrial company Continental Management and the State Property Committee of Russia.