Dmitry Mezentsev agreed with Oleg Deripaska on a temporary restart of the Baikalsk pulp and paper mill in a closed water cycle to preserve jobs in Baikalsk and minimize harm to the environment.

Dmitry Mezentsev reached an agreement with Oleg Deripaska on the temporary launch of the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill in a closed-loop water circulation system. This will make it possible to provide jobs for the residents of Baikalsk with minimal harm to the environment.
Governor Dmitry Mezentsev held talks with the CEO of the Basic Element holding company, which includes the management company of the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, Continental Management, Oleg Deripaska. Dmitry Mezentsev supported the idea of temporarily restarting the BPPM, but in a closed-loop water circulation system, which makes it possible to minimize the production’s impact on the environment.
The entire region had been waiting for a solution to the BPPM issue. “But there was always the question of which component in the BPPM issue would dominate — the environmental one or the social one. And they are in direct contradiction. The decision that has been made is quite balanced in its environmental and social components. The plant will not operate in an open cycle, and there will be no discharges into Baikal. At the same time, the social problem is also being addressed: when the plant is launched, people get jobs, the city gets taxes, and the rusty nail in the backside of the Irkutsk Region is pulled out, and a calm pause appears for reorienting the territories of Baikalsk,” said Yury Faleychik.
Note that projects for the development of special economic zones in Baikalsk and the Slyudyansky District — a production and innovation zone and a tourist and recreational zone — are already being worked out in the government of the Irkutsk Region.
Political scientist Valery Khomyakov emphasized that the BPPM problem has existed for quite a long time, and if Dmitry Mezentsev finds a solution to it, this will positively affect his authority in the region and his political prospects at the federal level.
Recall that in September 2008, at the demand of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, the BPPM switched to a closed-loop water circulation system in order to eliminate discharges of polluted wastewater into Baikal. The introduction of this less profitable technology coincided with the beginning of the global crisis, and on November 10 production at the plant was halted, and bankruptcy proceedings have now begun.
Member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Commission on Regional Development Alexey Chadayev believes that the agreements reached by the Irkutsk governor will help ease social tension in the region, but the final resolution of the problem is still a long way off: “Right now everything is in such a semi-frozen state, when Deripaska received unprecedented money from the Kremlin, and thanks to that some unprofitable enterprises in his sphere will work for some time, but sooner or later this will end. Therefore, if I were in Mezentsev’s place, I would personally think about what to do with production as such, how under the current circumstances to find a scheme in which this planned unprofitability is absent. But in the end everything will depend on market conditions.”
Note that Dmitry Mezentsev held a meeting in Moscow with the head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, Sergei Naryshkin, and with the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, Elvira Nabiullina, at which the topic of the BPPM was raised. Following the meetings, the governor said that today the most important thing is to normalize the situation in Baikalsk. The next step is to define a clear strategy for the development of the territory based on new industries, in compliance with all environmental protection standards.