Russia's Lake Baikal threatened by zinc mine

By Olga Petrova

LAKE BAIKAL, Russia (Reuters) - Green trees sway on the hilly Russian horizon, rainbows pierce Lake Baikal's grey waters and waves pound a pathless shore.

The stark beauty of the world's deepest and oldest lake is under threat, ecologists say, because it lies downstream from a rich source of zinc.

The proximity has opened up a debate in this resource-rich nation, pitting industrialists and job-hungry officials in Siberia against ecologists and government agencies in Moscow.

Experts say the Kholodninskoye deposit, which sits in a watershed flowing straight into Baikal, is the planet's third largest lead and zinc field.

Zinc is used in the production of galvanised steel, the automobile industry, household batteries, vitamin supplements, fireworks and as a compound in some cosmetics.

MBC Resources, a subsidiary of Russia's privately owned Metropol group, has a licence to develop Kholodninskoye, which has an estimated 13.3 million tonnes of zinc and 2 million tonnes of lead. It has drafted a plan to develop the field and other metals in the region at an estimated cost of $4 billion (2.2 billion pounds).

But ecologists in Buryatia region in Siberia, where Baikal lies, say development would despoil the biggest freshwater mass on earth -- already threatened by tourism and other industries.

"For us right now, this is problem number one," said Sergey Shapkhayev, director of the Buryat/Baikal Land Use Programme in Ulan Ude.