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Russian police raid environmental group working to protect Lake Baikal Jeremy Hance mongabay.com February 01, 2010 A member of the group, however, linked the raid to its public stance against reopening the Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Mills on Lake Baikal, which closed due to pollution concerns two years ago. "All of our programs are licensed. They confiscated the computers without checking the license documents, saying they didn't have experts to look at them," Galina Kulebyakina, a member of Baikal Environmental Wave, told The Moscow Times.
The Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Mill complex began operation in the 1960s and has used the lake as a dump for refuse. It is the largest employer in the town of Baikalsk, employing some 1,500 people. Located in Siberia, Lake Baikal is the world’s largest body of freshwater and is incredibly rich in species found no-where-else with 1,500 endemic species recorded so far, including Lake Baikal's freshwater seal known locally as the nerpa. A study in 2008 found that contaminates known as perfluorochemicals, or PFCs, were present in the seals at higher levels than in 1992, proving that pollution is an ongoing issue for the lake. Related articles Deepest-ever lake dive searches for new energy sources (07/29/2008) Russian scientists have reached the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, to take samples of gas hydrate deposits. Russia hopes the methane-rich deposits could someday be exploited as an energy source. First park established in Russian Far East (06/08/2007) Russia has established the first national park in the far eastern part of the country. The initiative seeks to protect endangered Amur tigers from extinction.
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