(Source: Catalogue "The State of Russia. Natural Resources.", 2001, ASMO-press)
Deputy Director of the Department for Environmental Protection and Safety under the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia
The significance of environmental safety in the Russian Federation as one of the main constituents of national security has greatly increased in recent years. This is reflected in legal statements currently in force, including the Concept of National Security of the Russian Federation.
This document emphasizes environment preservation and enhancement, protection of people, the society and the nation from natural and man-caused emergency situations and their after-effects.
It should be noted that the environmental condition directly depends upon the state of economy and upon the willingness of a society to realize the global character of those problems and their importance.
The current entanglement is caused by a number of internal and external factors.
The main internal factors are:
* imperfect and contradictory clauses in the environmental regulations dealing with environmental safety;
* pre-eminent development of fuel and energy branches of industry;
* physical and moral depreciation of technological equipment at many industrial units, utilization of outdated, polluting technologies and ineffective environmental facilities;
* insufficient efficiency of existing environmental control mechanisms in the context of new economic conditions;
* emerging environmental-economic delinquency and the threats of ecological terrorism;
* imperfection of the environmental regulations or limited use of environment-conserving technologies and low ecological culture.
External factors:
* the tendency of some industrially-developed nations to site in the territory of Russia "dirty" production-lines and technologies, and also dangerous industrial and consumption waste disguised as raw material resources;
* pressure from highly-developed nations under the pretext of environmental safety (refusal to buy Russian products on the plea of the environmental certificate absence);
* The urge of some countries to consolidate their leading geopolitical and economic positions in the world to the detriment of the Russian national interests. One of the paradoxes of the current situation is that the transition to the market economy, despite the sharp reduction of production volume, aggravated the unfavourable environmental conditions in the country. Many Russian regions are facing the environment crisis.
Assessing the state of environment
Free air. In 1999 there were 195 cities with the total population of 64.5 million people (44 per cent of the Russian population) where the concentration of one or several impurities in the free air exceeded the maximum limit.
In 31 cities with the total population of 17.5 million people the level of contaminants exceeded 10 times the maximum permissible concentration (MPC). The worst condition of the air was registered in Omsk (72 MPC of acetaldehyde, 55 MPC of ethylbenzene, 34 MPC of hydrogen chloride).
In 1999 there were 22 inhabited localities with the total population of 13 million people in the list of cities with the highest content of contaminants in the air.
Notwithstanding the considerable reduction of pollutant industrial discharge during the period of 1990-1999 and lower concentration of detrimental impurities in the free air, its pollution in 1999 was still inadmissibly high.
Taking into account the output growth which began in 1999 and, as a result, the increase of pollutant emissions by factories, thermal power stations (TPS) and hydroelectric power stations (HPS) (owing to switching several dozens of them from such a pollution-free fuel as natural gas to coal and fuel oil), we can expect considerable further deterioration and pollution of the free air and therefore the growth of diseases and death rates. In this connection it is necessary for the state to keep a closer watch over such monopolists as JSC "Gazprom" in order to protect the environment and the health of the nation. It is also essential to strengthen the state ecological assessment and the state environmental control over plants and over the quality of free air in big cities and industrial centres.
Available land. According to the information of the state bodies there was 1,709.8 million hectares (about 5,000 million acres) of available land in the Russian Federation by January 1, 2000. According to all accounting land categories, farming land occupied 221.1 million hectares (12.9 per cent of the available land), which means it shrank by 10.5 hectares compared to 1998. The main reason for this reduction is disuse of fertile land. The reason why farm land becomes unproductive is its complete degeneration due to unpractical utilization and the impact of negative processes, such as ablation and wind erosion, flooding, swamping and the like.
On the whole, a low content of humus is quite typical for 56 million hectares of Russian arable land (45 per cent), superacidity (especially in the forest-steppe and black earth regions) is characteristic of 43 million hectares (36 per cent). 28 million hectares (23 per cent) have a low content of phosphorus and 12 million hectares (9 per cent) - a low content of potassium which limits productivity of those lands. More than 50 million hectares of farm land including over 35 million hectares of arable land are subject to ablation and wind erosion, 66 million of hectares are endangered by erosion. Practically all agricultural lands in the Central Black-Earth and North-Caucasian districts are either eroded or endangered by erosion. In the Volga region, Western Siberia and Southern Urals every third or fourth hectare of arable land is subject to erosion. The process of desertification of the Black lands and Kizlyar pastures continues as a result of wind erosion.
The total area of lands subject to desertification or potentially dangerous in this respect amounts to 50-100 million hectares. These processes are registered in more than 20 Russian provinces, but they are most intense on the territories of Kalmykia and Daghestan as well as in the Astrakhan and Rostov regions. In the Republic of Kalmykia more than 82 per cent of lands have been desertified, 47 per cent in a great degree.
The measures taken by the government and aimed at preserving the fertility of lands are evidently insufficient. They do not allow to improve the quality of farming land dramatically. Land users lack motivation in preserving the fertility of lands which makes their condition even worse.
Natural mineral resources. In the Russian Federation about 20 thousand mineral deposits have been prospected and explored, and 37 per cent of them have been industrially developed. Huge and unique deposits (about 5 per cent from the total number) include almost 70 per cent of the explored stock and account for 50 per cent of mined minerals.
No major positive shifts in the Russian mineral and raw-materials base occurred in the year 1999. The problem of scarce treasures of the soil such as manganese, uranium, chromium, zirconium, lead, high-quality bauxite, several kinds of rock products is not being solved. The procurement of mineral reserves for the majority of mining enterprises is 15-30 years; however, a considerable part of them demands reappraisal with reference to the market economy.
Temporary and final closing down of enterprises of the mining industry, reclaiming of lands injured by mining works are being done with serious flaws - just as in the previous years. Coal mines damaging the environment and the bowels of the earth are not liquidated for the shortage of funds, and the lands are not restored. In the ore-mining industry the situation is even worse. Unsatisfactory financing resulted in reclaiming of only 7.1 per cent of lands.
As in the previous years, the condition of operated oil wells remains unsatisfactory. The problem of abandoned deep prospecting holes located beyond mining leases and posing a serious threat is not solved.
The problems of improving economic control of nature management under presents conditions, assessment of deposit reserves with long-term economic factors in mind and also renewal of legislation base deserve special attention.
Vegetative resources. In recent years the natural vegetation has been degenerated at a brisk pace as a result of uncontrollable economic activity. This is expressed in the shrinkage of basic vegetable-resource stock, decreasing biological diversity, lowering of the vegetation ecological potential. Native types of plant life are being degenerated and replaced everywhere. The mass spreading of weeds from other areas testifies to serious defects in vegetation.
Despite the fact, that in the year 1999 the volume of timber procurement grew for the first time in recent years (up to 111 million cubic metres), actually only 20 per cent of the estimated wood-cutting area were disforested.
The forest was regenerated on the area of 905.5 thousand hectares during the previous year; forest plantation were carried out on 227.9 thousand hectares; more than 1.7 billion standard seedlings and saplings were grown which on the whole meets the demand for them in the year 2000.
More than 1,300 thousand hectares of woods are exposed to considerable man-caused impact as a result of local pollutant emissions and regional transfers of contaminants.
36,629 forest fires were registered in the forest fund of the Russian Federation in 1999. The fire damaged 1,048 hectares, including 751.7 hectares of forest lands. The estimated fire loss equalled 1,664.3 million roubles. The fires in the woods, that had been exposed to radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, aroused particular anxiety. In the Bryansk Region alone 280 fires were registered in such places.
The shortage of equipment and limited financing of works on fire, vermin and disease detection, notification and suppression lower the effectiveness of national forest protection.
Biological resources. About 60 kinds of mammals and 70 kinds of birds, inhabiting the Russian territory, are a permanent target of amateur and professional hunting. Wild hoofed animals, brown bear and 20 kinds of fur-bearing animals have the greatest economic significance. Their hunting provides meat, leather and furs as well as valuable medicinal stuff. Positive dynamics has been observed during the recent two years in the condition of hunting resources. Owing to the improved state control of hunting farms and more effective combating of poaching, the population of most animal species throughout the country on the whole grew in number. Only the Kalmyk saiga among all wild hoofed animals is on the brink of extinction. Many populations of water-fowl and most kinds of valuable hunted fur-bearing animals are in a good condition.
The fishing of hydro-biological resources in rivers, lakes, storage ponds, domestic, suburban and territorial seas, on the continental shelf and in the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation is regulated by general permissible catches (GPC). The overall potential of catch and harvest is determined by the food stock of 600 animals and plants in the seas of Russia and 130 other areas of the World Ocean.
The monitoring of the Russian seas conducted in 1999 did not show any principal changes in the condition of hydro-biological resources which is an evidence of a relatively stable dynamics therein during the last decade.
On the whole the state of fish stock in Russian freshwater reservoirs may be deemed satisfactory. The conditions for spawning and fishing there in 1999 were favourable; the catch increased compared to the previous year. In recent years the registered annual catch in our domestic reservoirs has been rather stable, about 50 thousand tons. The uncontrollable catch results in a steady tendency towards the reduction of sturgeon stock in the reservoirs of the Russian North West. In fact, salmon is no longer a food fish there. According to the expert appraisal the actual catch of zander, bream and white-fish twice exceeds the officially registered figures.
In order to reproduce the fish stock, 6,442,175 million fry of valuable food fish were let out to natural ponds and storage pools. Thanks to the efforts of fish-breeding enterprises alone the stock of sturgeon and salmon in the Caspian Sea, the stock of salmon in the Far East, the stock of sturgeon in the Azov basin and in the basins of Siberian rivers have been replenished. The works aimed at acclimatization of hunchback salmon in the North of the European part of Russia continued.
The dynamics of the natural environment and of the socio-economic situation in the country predetermines the permanent character of keeping the Russian Red Book, which requires the constant monitoring of animal and plant populations entered therein and adequate improvement of the structure of animal and plant species which are specially guarded by the government. Ten regional Red Books were published in the years 1998-1999.
The radiation-environmental situation. On the whole, the radiation situation on the territory of Russia remained stable in 1999. The content of radionuclides in the free air, soils, surface waters and seas remained at the level of 1998. However, in the zone of the East-Urals radioactive track all along the Techa river from the industrial zone to the very mouth the level of soil contamination with strontium-90 does not decrease. Low terraces and swamps in the upper soil stratum retain up to 20 per cent of radioactive strontium stock and up to 30-40 per cent of radioactive caesium.
In 19 cities and settlements 68 areas of radioactive contamination were discovered in 1999.
The radiation situation in the Bryansk, Kaluga, Orel and Tula regions, that were exposed to the most intensive radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl accident, remains rather unfavourable. The density of caesium contamination on 2.16 million hectares of farm land is more than 1 curie per square kilometre. 324.9 thousand hectares have the contamination of over 5 curie per square kilometre. The highest level of contamination (more than 15 curie per square kilometre) is retained on certain territories of the Bryansk Region. In the above-stated regions measures were taken in 1999 aimed at manufacturing normatively pure products and population protection; however, that work was not completed.
Mushrooms and wild berries (cranberries, bilberries, red whortleberries and others), contaminated with radioactive strontium appeared on some farmers" markets of Moscow, St.Petersburg and several other towns in 1999. They were brought from the Bryansk, Kaluga, Smolensk, Pskov, Leningrad, Tambov, Vologda, Vladimir, Tver and Nizhny Novgorod regions, from the republics of Komi and Karelia and also from Ukraine and Byelorussia.
Special types of contamination. The inventory of enterprises producing and utilizing substances containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and also waste products including those compounds was carried out in 1999. It revealed the fact that more than 200 thousand exploited and reserved transformers and condensers are filled with 18 thousand tons of oils containing PCB.
Special efforts aimed at the environment preservation and population protection from the impact of dioxins and chlorine-containing pesticides were taken continuously. The results of examining the territory of the town of Schelkovo in the Moscow Region and determining the content of dioxins in the samples of fluvial, drinking and waste waters in the cities of Yaroslavl and Rybinsk testify to the need of systematic control over dioxins. In the course of selective observations, soils contaminated with pesticides were discovered in 12 out of 34 subjects of the Russian Federation, the most complicated situation being in the Kursk Region and in the Northern Caucasus.
At least 35 million people were affected by the enhanced noise levels. From 25 to 35 per cent of residents inhabiting large and medium-size towns are exposed to the noise levels amounting to 50-85 decibels, that is, exceeding the upper permissible level of 55 decibels for habitable blocks of flats. The public motor transport is largely responsible for the noise pollution of inhabited localities (it accounts for 70-78 per cent of noise). The noise levels in the habitable town districts range from 50 to 85 decibels.
The number of people exposed to supernormative impact of aviation noise is estimated as 3-5 million. The works aimed at lowering the noise of engines at domestically produced planes to the level of international standards are advancing very slowly.
Ecology and population"s health. The statistics reflects an extremely unfavourable state of population"s health; the excess of death-rate over birth-rate in most of the regions is a clear evidence of the depopulation process being in progress. According to the forecasts of the State Statistics Committee, the population of the country will shrink by 11.5 million people in the period of 1999-2016. During this period the population of the West-Siberian and East-Siberian economic regions will decrease by 2.2 million people due to natural loss and migratory outflow. By 2016 the life expectancy in the West-Siberian economic region will rise to 69.8 years; in the East-Siberian region - to 66.5 years, while the average life expectancy in Russia will approximate 69.6 years. The permanent population by January 1, 2000 was estimated as 145,559.2 thousand people which was 768.4 thousand (or 0.5 per cent) less than in the previous year. During the last 10 years the population has decreased by more than 2.1 million residents and was 98.6 per cent of 1990 level.
The deterioration of living standards and environmental troubles adversely affect the sickness rate of the population, especially children. The problems of the public health system became particularly acute in the areas populated by scanty, indigenous, nomadic Northern tribes, inhabiting mainly the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets), Evenki and Nenets autonomous areas.
Free air has an injurious effect upon the population"s health. It is most often polluted by nitrogen and carbon oxides, formaldehyde, hydrocarbons, sulphurous anhydride. In 1999 the specific weight of free air samples with those substances exceeding MAC amounted to 6.96 per cent on the average. As compared to the previous year there was a positive dynamics in such parameters as dust, carbon oxide, formaldehyde, sulphurous anhydride, hydrogen sulphide, carbon bisulphide, while there was a negative dynamics as far as nitrogen oxides and benzapirene were concerned. The content of nitrogen oxide in the free air samples along the highways in the densely populated areas is exceedingly high, way over MAC. In 1999 this index in Russia averaged 17 per cent for nitrogen oxides and 12.3 per cent for other mentioned substances.
The main instrument of studying the impact of environment upon health used by state sanitary inspectors was the system of social-hygienic monitoring (SHM) of the Russian Federation. Methodical and organizational fundamentals for the development of this system at the federal level were being defined in the years 1998-1999. The systems of social-hygienic monitoring are being successfully developed at the local level in Taganrog, Novomoskovsk, Kemerovo, Vladimir, Zelenograd and other cities.
Ecology and preservation of cultural heritage. At the beginning of 1999 there were 86,220 objects in the Russian State Register of historic and cultural monuments, including 24,888 monuments of federal (all-Russian) significance and 59,965 monuments of local significance.
About 70 per cent of objects need to be protected from damaging and destruction as a result of negative processes and effects including environmental ones.
According to the official information obtained from the subjects of the Russian Federation in 1999, more than 19 thousand historic and cultural memorials were exposed to a negative impact of environmental factors (more than 7 thousand were exposed to natural negative factors and about 12 thousand - to anthropogenic factors). As estimated by the experts, more than 33 thousand memorials or over 38 per cent of them are being destroyed.
A considerable number of cultural heritage objects has been lost as a result of exposure to natural risk factors: changing of sea and artificial storage shore lines, landslides and erosion. Relatively new environmental risk factors, such as unrestricted construction, uncontrollable accumulation of the cultural stratum and visual soiling of valuable historic landscapes - showed up practically everywhere. Unfortunately in many cases we are facing a combined effect of several factors which aggravates the consequences. Thus, the Dmitrovsky and Uspensky cathedrals, the cathedral of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin upon Nerl (all dating back to the 12th century) as well as other memorials of Vladimir and Suzdal white-stone architecture included in UNESCO List of the World Heritage, are presently in a critical condition.
Archeologists discovered more than 100 thousand historic memorials including transit stations, sites of ancient settlements, burial grounds, shrines and sanctuaries, petroglyphs and rock paintings, mines, workshops and areas of the cultural stratum. Only 15 thousand of them are under the government protection.
Among the natural processes we should note the intensive destruction of archeological memorials in the littoral zones and offshore strips. Physical destruction of the cultural layer in historic towns is a special problem that needs to be addressed.
By January 1, 2000 there were 88 memorial reserves (approved by the decrees of the Russian Government). However, there is no special environmental control on their territories. The examination of 60 memorial reserves in the years 1998-1999 showed that there is little change in the environmental problems they are facing year after year.
In the year 1999 nothing really changed in solving the main problems that confront the memorials of landscape art, memorial estates, historic landscapes and forest-park areas of mass recreation. However, some of them which have to do with new housing and road construction the suburban areas, slackening of control from public and federal bodies became even more acute in the Moscow, Tver, Tula, Pskov and some other Russian provinces.
At present the State Code of particularly valuable objects of cultural heritage, belonging to the peoples of the Russian Federation has 62 items in it. Most of them are located in big industrial cities and exposed to negative environmental effects.
Specially guarded native territories. In 1999 the network of specially guarded native territories kept on expanding, and the legislative base of the preserve busines being improved.
By the end of the year there were 99 state natural preserves (covering the total area of 33.3 million hectares which is 1.6 per cent of the whole Russian territory), 35 national parks (covering 6.96 million hectares which is 0.4 per cent), 67 federal game reserves (12.44 million hectares), about 4,000 regional game reserves (over 65 million hectares), 28 federal natural memorials (19.4 thousand hectares), about 30 natural parks. By December 31, 1999 eighty botanical gardens and dendrological parks attached to different departments (Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and others) were all included in the Council of botanical gardens of Russia. Their peculiar feature is that they are located mainly in the inner cities which explains the scale and nature of ecological effects, predominantly anthropogenic.
The virgin forests of Komi, Lake Baikal, the Volcanoes of Kamchatka, Gold Mountains of Altai and West Caucasus were included in the list of the world natural heritage by the beginning of 2000. Twenty two objects have an international status of biosphere reservations (they"ve been given corresponding UNESCO certificates), eight are under the jurisdiction of the World Convention on preserving cultural and natural heritage, eleven are under the jurisdiction of the Convention on wetlands which are of international importance mainly as waterfowl habitat (the Ramsar Convention), four (Oka, Teberdinsk, Central Black Earth and Kostomuksha) were given special diplomas by the European Council, three (Kostomuksha, Daur and Khankai) were included in the list of international transborder specially protected natural reservations.
Among urgent measures aimed at maintaining and developing the network of federal natural preserves the following deserve special mentioning: improving financing from different sources, completing the state cadastre of specially guarded natural reservations, changing the federal law "On specially guarded natural reservations" and some other laws, developing new norm-setting acts.
Inadequate government control of migratory processes aggravates the ecological situation in a number of regions. Settling of migrants in densely populated and ecologically strained cities of the Volga, Ural and Central areas overloads the systems of power and water supply and sewerage.
In 1999 ecological tenseness due to dangerous natural and man-caused processes on urbanized territories did not slacken. 746 towns suffered from floods; 725 - from landslides and mudslides; 103 - from earthquakes, 14 - from avalanches and mudflows; 442 - from ravine erosion; 301 - from the karst; 958 - from suffosion; 563 - from subsidence of the loess rocks. The area of development of these processes is constantly expanding, because preventive works had ceased in most towns. The process of flooding of urbanized territories by subterranean waters has rapidly developed in recent years; 82 per cent of towns have been subject to it. This process increases the accident rate of structures and engineering services, aggravates the sanitary and epidemiological situation.
In the permafrost zone covering about 65 per cent of the Russian territory, dangerous geo-cryological processes are manifest. Their further intensification and, as a result, the growing economic and environmental damage is expected due to a constant increase of man-caused heat load.
In 1999 about 30 million tons of solid domestic waste were generated in towns and urban-type settlements. According to forecasts by the year 2005 its annual accumulation will increase to 35 million tons. In 1999 only 4 incinerators and 4 garbage-disposal plants were operated. The main part of solid domestic waste was still stored on testing grounds (over 90 per cent of those do not comply with the sanitary requirements) and on disorganized dumps.
The areas of greenery planting in towns keep on shrinking, as a result of land being used for housing construction.
There are considerable losses in the heat supply system (up to 30 per cent of heat generated at heat power plants and boiler-houses). In the future it is expedient to develop towns on the basis of autonomous heating.
Conclusions and estimations
The analysis of the ecological situation on economically developed territories of the Russian Federation shows that in spite of environment-protection measures and reduction of pollutant emissions and disposals caused by the production fall, the environmental situation remains rather unfavourable, and the level of pollution is still very high.
A serious environmental threat comes from the production and consumption wastes. The rate of their growth largely exceeds the available opportunities for their processing and neutralizing. Altogether over 80 billion tons of solid waste have been accumulated on the territory of Russia, the toxic waste amounting to 1,781.6 million tons. 1,400 million tons of this waste are kept under control at depots, stores, storage houses, organized dumps, testing areas (proving grounds), burial grounds and other similar places. It should be noted, that over 15 per cent of registered waste storage (burial) places do not comply with the standards currently in force.
Unsatisfactory utilization, neutralizing and disposal of industrial and domestic waste in most regions of the country can be explained by the fact that the construction of waste disposal objects as well as waste neutralizing and utilization plants is very poorly financed.
The aggravation of the environmental situation is caused not only by a general economic crisis caused by the low investment activity and lowering of technological discipline, but also by structural economic deformations that had developed during many years and led to the domination of nature-consuming industries, resource-consuming and power-consuming technologies, the raw-materials orientation of Russian export and also excessive concentration of industrial production in the few national industrial centres and regions.
At the same time the systems of purifying and utilizing pollutant discharge degraded because of deterioration of the key environmental assets.
The accident rate keeps growing, which more frequently leads to unfavourable environmental effects, sometimes - to disasters.
Insufficient wildlife preservation provisions was also a very negative factor.
Irrational exploiting and even depleting of natural resources contributes to degeneration of natural complexes.
In developing the Russian environmental policy it is necessary to take into consideration the current state of production and technologies, the expected dynamics of pollution and the scope of exploiting natural resources in case of economic growth. It is essential to work out such conditions which could direct the industrial development and economic stabilization into the channel of meeting environmental challenges and keep them within this channel.
Therefore the main goal of the environmental policy is defining the conditions for economic growth, taking into account the achievements in resource economy, low-waste technologies. The structure of national economy should meet the requirements of the scientific-technical revolution and environmental safety of the nation.
The analysis of environmental hazard shows that the nature and scale of anthropogenic impact on the environment have to do, first of all, with the level of technological safety at industrial objects and works; also with the effectiveness of prevention and elimination of industrial accidents.
The main sources of man-caused environmental hazard are: the enterprises of chemical, metallurgical, pulp-and-paper, oil-and-gas producing and refining industries; transportation of dangerous cargoes by railways; oil-trunk and gas-main pipelines as well as field oil, gas and product pipelines; also the enterprises of military-industrial complex (40 thousand tons of chemical weapons, more than 60 thousand tons of toxic rocket propellant components and plenty of other poisonous stuff are stored on our national territory).
There are 45 thousand potentially dangerous industrious objects in Russia. More than 3.6 thousand of these objects contain over one million tons of highly toxic chemical substances and materials, including the ones posing serious threat to the environment; there are 8 thousand explosive and fire-dangerous objects; over 30 thousand reservoirs and storage pools of environmentally dangerous industrial effluent and waste - many of them are in an emergency or precarious condition.
Radiation-dangerous objects such as nuclear power plants with nuclear power units; nuclear-powered vessels of civil use; scientific-research organizations with research nuclear-power units; naval, atomic submarines with nuclear reactors on board belong to the enhanced environmental-risk category.
Improving environment protection activities
Of all the most important government goals in the area of environmental safety the following ones deserve special mentioning:
* efficient resources of natural and ecological education;
* prevention of environment pollution by raising the safety of burying and utilizing toxic industrial and domestic waste;
* prevention of radioactive contamination of the environment, minimizing the consequences of accidents and disasters that happened in the past;
* ecologically safe storing and utilizing of old armaments, registration of atomic submarines, vessels and ships with nuclear power installations as well as of nuclear ammunition, toxic components of rocket fuels, nuclear power-plant fuels, radioactive waste;
* environment and health-safe storing and elimination of the chemical weapon stock;
* developing and introducing safe production lines; using ecologically clean power sources;
* taking measures to improve the situation in environmentally dangerous regions;
* Reinforcement of the state environmental control, drawing upon the rich scientific-industrial and intellectual potential of the world community for developing and introducing the newest environmentally pure technologies must tell upon the Russian economy and living standards of Russian citizens in the nearest future.
Copyright 2001 "ASMO-press". All rights reserved and preserving in compliance with a legislation of Russian Federation. Any use the site information is possible with a hyperlink to "ASMO-press" only.
Victor KUTSENKO
http://analytics.ex.ru/cgi-bin/txtnscr.pl?node=664&txt=1182&lang=2&sh=1
