Russian plan to reverse Siberian rivers

Press, 17 September 1976, Page 12

Russian plan to reverse Siberian rivers

By

DAVID LASCELLES,

, East European

correspondent of the “Financial Times”

The Russians’ plan to redirect Siberian rivers towards the deserts of Central Asia, already the butt of protests from Western environmentalists, is back on the cards after lying dormant for several years. The project is enshrined in the new Five Year Plan which Moscow adopted at the beginning of this year for 1976-80. This means it has official blessing, and that money is being put aside for it, though the Russians admit it will be decades before work even starts.

This enormous scheme, by far the largest of its kind ever contemplated, is rooted in a significant geological fact. The Siberian watershed is such that all the region’s mighty rivers, the Ob, the Irtysh, the Angara and the Lena, flow northwards into the Arctic Sea. Not a drop of Siberia’s incalculable rain and snowfall finds its way to the south. As the Russians see it, this is an enormous waste of water which could be put to use irrigating the parched steppes of Kazakhstan where the soil is potentially rich.

They have long dreamed of correcting this “fault” of nature, but their plans were repeatedly shelved. However, the agricultural disasters of the last four years have added a new urgency to the land reclamation programme. In spite of Russia’s size, the acreage of arable land per head of population is actually declining. And this is almost certainly the reason for the revival of the diversion project. In fact, there are two projects on the drawing board, both involving the Ob, Irtysh and Tobol rivers (the last two are Ob tributaries) which lie just beyond the Urals in western Siberia. These rivers have been chosen because they are closest to Kazakhstan and the Aral and Caspian Sea depressions where the water shortage is most acute.

Under the first project a 2300 km (1500 mile) canal would be built from the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers to a point not far from the Soviet border with Iran. In European terms, this is the equivalent of building a canal from Stockholm to Sicily. Under an alternative but less

favoured scheme the canal would start 400 miles further north at Khanty Mansiysk on the confluence of the Ob and the Irtysh. The canal would run south and cross the Siberian watershed at its lowest point just east of the Urals’s southernmost foothills, which would entail pumping the water up 75 metres (250 ft After this, gravity will take it past the Aral Sea (which may be fed by a branch from the canal) and into the Kyzylkum and Karakum deserts. On the way, it will cross the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers, which are seasonal. The canal would divert some 50 cubic kilometres (about 50 billion tonnes) of water a year from the Siberian rivers, enough by Russian estimates to irrigate 10M acres of valuable cotton and lucerne-growing land. It would - also enable the region’s sheep population to be doubled.

Under the second project, a branch would be built off the northern end of the canal to divert water over the southern Urals and down into the Ural River basin where it would serve to irrigate the sea north of the Caspian Sea. At the moment the Ural River, though it rises in the well-watered Urals range, is inadequate to

irrigate its lower reaches. Technically, this is the more formidable project since it involves raising the water over a higher watershed, though the canal would be shorter. About 12 cubic kilometres (12 billion tonnes) would go through this waterway each year. In both cases, pumping stations

would be powered by hydroelectric stations driven by the water as it flowed down the far side. To feed these canals and maintain a regular flow' of water, Soviet engineers propose to build several giant reservoirs along the Tobol, Irtysh and Ob rivers, and even some of their tribu-

Uries in the heart of Siberia. One of the main reservoirs, at Tobolsk, would have a surface area of 250 square km (100 square miles).

The Russians are senstivie about the widespread international criticism that greeted the announcement of the project some years ago. It was claimed then that a reduction in the volume of water flowing into the Arctic Sea could change the environmental balance, and even permit the ice cap to creep further south.

According to Novosti, the semi-official news agency, the diversion of the proposed total of 75 billion cu. km of water a year from the Irtysh and the Ob "would not cause the slightest damage to Siberia.” On the other hand, the irrigation of Central Asia would do a lot of good. Although a large number of engineers are now reported to be working on these projects, the Russians are still cautious about the schedule. The cnief engineer, Mr Igor Gerardi, was quoted as saying “Our children will complete the job.” And in a recent report. Radio Moscow said construction of the main canal and reservoirs would not start until the 19905.