Russian Court Rules Siberian Pipeline Route Unlawful

Text of report by Russian news agency Ekho Moskvy

Ulan-Ude, 6 June: The Republic of Buryatia’s Supreme Court today ruled invalid the favourable conclusion made by the state environmental study on the route of an oil pipeline passing 800 m. away from [Lake] Baykal, Roman Vazhenkov, head of Greenpeace Russia’s Baykal programme, has said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Vazhenkov said the suit proclaiming the experts’ conclusion as invalid was lodged by environmental public organizations: Greenpeace Russia, the Buryat Regional Baykal Association and the Khabarovsk regional organization Ekodal.

“At one time, on 26 April 2006, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin ordered the company Transneft to move the pipeline away from [Lake] Baykal and beyond the boundary of the Baykal basin, but that decision was never formalized in law. Now at last it has been. This is a serious victory for public environmental organizations, and [it gives us] hope that there is such a thing as an independent court in Russia,” Bazhenkov said.

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