LAKE GUSINOE TO BAIKAL VIA SELENGA DELTA: PROTECTION-DESTRUCTION SPIRAL

Hidetoshi Naganawa
Naganawa Memorial Institute of Environmental Science (NMIE)
Daifukucho 5-13-1-543, Gifu 502-0934, Japan

Abstract

Lake Gusinoe is the largest water body in the Buryat Republic (South Siberia, Russia) and still the only source of both drinking and industrial water supply. All the wastewater is thrown away into the same lake. Most of the tributaries, concentrated on the western lakeshore, disappear into the coarse deposits of alluvial fans soon after they emerge from the mountains. Anthropogenic impacts on the lake ecosystem increased during the 20th century. The biggest environmental polluters are the Gusinoozersk coal mine, the Kholboldzhinsky opencut coal mine, and the Gusinoozersk State Regional Power Plant (Gusinoozersk SRPP). The Gusinoozersk SRPP takes a large amount of freshwater from the Zagustai River, the longest influent of Lake Gusinoe, to produce hot water and steam for the turbines. The warm wastewater is discharged back into the lake. As a result of this, an unfrozen patch of water measuring about 2 km² is formed on the lake in winter, and the water temperature in the upper layer is 13–14°C higher than the lower ones. Some chemical components (e.g., sulfate, phenol, iron ions) of both the lake water and surface/groundwater of the Lake Gusinoe Basin are with constant excess of the maximum allowable concentration (MAC). The Gusinoozersk SRPP is also the main air polluter. Now Lake Gusinoe is constantly polluted and in the state of degradation. Lake Gusinoe might be possible one of the largest pollution sources in the Baikal region, because the connecting transboundary Selenga River is the main inflow of Lake Baikal.

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