Unlike in Soviet Times, Siberian River Diversion Now ‘More a Political Slogan than a Scientifically Grounded Project,’ Puzanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 7 – Before the Soviet government in 1986 rejected the idea of diverting the water of Siberian rivers to Central Asia, Aleksandr Puzanov says, Moscow established a network of scholarly centers to examine the question given its extraordinarily complex and unprecedented nature.

            But today, the deputy director of the Institute of Water and Ecological Problesm of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences says, the whole issue is “more a political slogan than a scientifically sound project” and “no one has calculated the problems that will arise” if it is undertaken (vfokuse.mail.ru/articles/69615546-ekspert-pochemu-ideya-razvorota-sibirskih-rek-na-yug-nuzhdaetsya-v-glubokoj-prorabotke/).

            In Soviet times, he says, experts calculated exactly how much electricity would have to be generated to raise the waters from Siberian rivers to a height where they could flow to Central Asia, how much would be lost in transit, and what would be the impact on Siberia and the Arctic Ocean by removing so much water from the region.

            Now, however, many are again talking about diverting water southward;  but they are doing so almost in every case without any new research because there simply aren’t enough expert centers to conduct it. Consequently, the issue has been reduced to one of political choice rather than expert judgment.

            Puzanov’s words, of course,  apply with almost equal force to almost all of the major projects involving transfer of resources from one region to another, projects that the Kremlin leader and others appear to believe are simply the occasion for a display of political will rather than scholarly attention.