Antonov V.I.

RE THE "FALLACIOUS" PROJECT THAT SHOULD BE REHABILITATED
(Article from the "Narodnoe slovo" newspaper of July 10, 2002)

I wrote that article as a direct participant of the Transfer of a Part of the Siberian Rivers' Flows to Central Asia Project; the project an idea of that was suggested as long ago as 1868 and its direct technical development was began nearly a century later - in 1960s, and which in 1986, when they virtually proceeded with its realization, was stopped unreasonably and wrongly.

That project was supposed to take off from abundantly full-flowing Siberia a little part of its only one river flow, namely the Ob river. Concretely that was expected to be done in the place where Irtish river flows into Ob, near the Khanti-Mansiysk city. Only 27 km3, or about 7 % of the Ob river's flow, which, as it is known, carries its water to the Arctic Ocean, was intended to be drawn. Withdrawal of such slight, according to the Siberian measures, amount of water at the river downstream would not absolutely cause any damage to Siberia neither in the economical nor the ecological respects; especially as there is no water supply point at the Khanti-Mansiysk downstream, and Ob just usefully discharges its water to the ocean. But the good for Siberia ecology of that would be obvious, since taking 7 % of water out of Ob would improve the flood situation on that river.

At the same time, replenishment of the exhausted Central Asian rivers which in addition are highly salted in the middle and lower streams with ultra-fresh Ob water would be too good for them and mitigate the ecological crisis that the Central Asian region endures due to critical water resources deficit causing the Aral Sea to be drying up.

But Ob water, according to the project in question, was intended for not only the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers. On the initial site of the Siberia - Central Asia canal's route, a river's part of 5 km3 was supposed to be directed to the industrially developed regions of South Ural and the water-deficient Kurgan region of Russia, and 4 km3 - to the arid former virgin regions of Northern Kazakhstan, for grain crop irrigation.

However, benefit of implementation of the Siberia - Central Asia canal building project extends further. First of all, the project was aimed at solution of social-economic problems of both the middle region of Russia, combining West Siberia, vast areas of the Russian North and industrial zones of South Ural, and a large region of Central Asia. And one should say that in the existing geo-political situation, after independent states was formed on the territory of the former USSR, a need for solution of these problems, of course on the new mutually beneficial economic basis, got particular urgency both for Russia and the Central Asian states.

Accomplishment of the project will enable to create a strong economic bridge directly connecting all mentioned states and promote, at first, steady home development of each of the ones, and, at second, development of full-scale economic cooperation between those. The Central Asian countries, where the Siberian water is to be exported, in addition to mitigation of the Aral crisis, will gain an opportunity for the development of irrigation areas, what they critically need in, and provide thus employment of its population and, owing to that, abruptly increase output of food and other agricultural production. In the result, a wide opportunity will be given for supply to the middle and other regions and cities of Russia from Central Asia ecologically clean fruits, vegetable, grapes, melons and gourds, cotton fiber and other gifts of its generous land, grown in the Siberian water. Concurrently, in the zone of the Siberia - Central Asia canal's effect, industry, power system, transport communications, including a railroad along it will be developed, multi-sided infrastructure will be formed.

So how did it happen that such an important by its intention project has been stopped, or more precisely they have vetoed that? It happened in the course of the notorious full-scale "perestroika" (reconstruction) undertaken in the former USSR, when "new thinking" ideologists wanted a target for criticizing the style and methods of the previous governance of the country, and for that the Siberian Rivers Transfer Project the most convenient became as an example of display of criminal violence over the nature by the previous government of the country.

A campaign provoked by "re-constructors" began for discrediting that project as allegedly anti-natural and ecologically harmful thing. Its sense and purpose were awfully perverted and presented in such a way that the project as though intends to turn violently nearly all the Siberian rivers back and force them to flow to the Central Asian deserts.
As for to the situation in Central Asia, that was described in the course of that campaign so that there was no water resources deficit in the region and therefore there was no need to "turn" the Siberian rivers there, and a downright slipshodness was going in the water economy here, that local specialists in irrigation were downright "stupid persons", or even worse "ecological criminals" who occupied themselves with just "spending water wastefully" for irrigation fields "excessively developed", who "had built in large numbers all sorts of useless canals and water reservoirs", and thus deprived the Aral Sea of water and destroyed it. The words in quotes are cited by me from the publications of those years.
And one should note that, in the result of the campaign undertaken, the "re-constructors" gained their ends. They could form in the public opinion a garbled, sharply negative belief about both the Siberia - Central Asia canal building, and the state-of-the-art in water economy of the Central Asian region, and, unfortunately, such a belief still remains in the brains of a number of people.

That campaign resulted in that in August of 1986, in accordance with the decision of the former Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, (as it is known, its decisions were indisputable), the project was interposed by a veto that, strange as it may seem enough, is still in effect, though nothing remained from the body which made that decision for a long time now.
By the way, I note that many foreign experts working in Central Asia hold the opinion that there is no water deficit in the region and the main cause of the Aral crisis consists in our, allegedly, wasteful spending of the water resources available. I will not develop this subject further and will just say that such a consideration can have the people superficially familiar with our conditions and water problems, not understanding specifics of our irrigated agriculture, who made their idea about the situation in the region mainly basing on preconceived publications of the "perestroika" period.

In fact, the altitude of Central Asian agriculturists in relation to water is very thrifty, and activities of its productive use are highest here. And if our irrigation canals are highly filtrated due to that they flow mainly through earth beds, it means not in least that water is irretrievably lost there. Its most part returns, along with groundwater, flows to water sources and is used repeatedly at its lower stream. This is so-called return water that is used repeatedly. To crop irrigation, also a considerable part of collector-drainage flow is directed, which is mixed with the water drawn from rivers.

And what do we have as a consequence of that? On the Ob, Irtish and other Siberian rivers, because of surplus water, disastrous and destroying floods take place, and Central Asia experiences the Aral crisis, the fundamental cause of which is water resources deficit. Over almost 20 years, in Central Asia owing to water lack, irrigated areas are not enlarged, although this is required by the need for provision of the region's fast-growing population with food. We have this is when all over other parts of the world irrigation is highly developed.
Enough to say that, for instance, in the USA, during the last twenty years, irrigation areas were enlarged by 1.5 times, in Canada - by 1.7 times, in Brasilia - by 2.8 times, and so on. So, they can develop irrigation, and we cannot, for we already have that developed "above all measures".

Incidentally, in the second half of the last century, over sixty large-scale projects related to territorial redistribution of river flows in order to increase water supply to low-water regions were realized over the world and, in the result of that, no ecological cataclysms occurred both in the zones of withdrawal of a flow's part and in the areas where that flow was delivered to; on the contrary, on an area, where water arrived, new irrigated oases were formed.
Considerable on its scale water resources transfers were carried out by India, where a part of the Gang river water was delivered for irrigation development in the arid central states. The China People Republic owing to territorial redistribution of river flow alone extended irrigated areas in water-deficient districts of the country by eight millions hectares. And there are a lot of such examples.

As well, a number of international projects were realized, when a part of river flow of one country is diverted to another country. For example, water is transferred from the Canada's territory to the US water-deficient regions, and, in particular, to support the Great Lakes.

I would like to emphasize specifically that Central Asia, over the whole XX century, lagged behind the world activities in irrigation development rates and scales, although irrigated agriculture is the basis for life support of the local population, and development of areas is of vital importance.

During the last century, the areas of irrigated lands increased in the world by 8 times, and amount now to over 300 mln. ha. In Central Asia, within the Aral Sea basin, for that period, irrigated areas were extended by only 2.2 times - from 3.4 mln. ha to 7.9 mln. ha, including in Uzbekistan, from 1.8 mln. ha to 4.2 mln. ha. Consequently, new irrigated areas development rates in Central Asia lagged behind the world level by three and half times (!).

At the same time, population growth rates in the Aral Sea basin were higher than the world ones, and the population increased here by 7.7 times (!): from 6 million up to 46 million people, including in Uzbekistan from 3.8 million to 25 million people. If in the turn of the century, 0.6 ha of irrigated lands fell per head, nowadays, only there are only 0.17 ha, while for normal self-sufficiency with food and keeping the present production volumes of cotton fiber and other crops, we need to have, even taking into account forecasted intensification of agricultural production, about 0.3 ha. And after that, they say that we "excessively developed irrigation areas"? Where is the objectivity of those who say so?

By 1986, water resources of the Central Asian rivers were virtually exhausted completely, and the hope for their replenishment with Siberian water, with which the program of further irrigation development was being associated, was lost. As a result, as I noted above, we stopped the development of new lands. And water supply of the current irrigation even in middle-water years amounts to no more than 80 %.

I think, the above-written convincingly enough reveals that the project concerning delivery of a part of the Siberian Ob river's flow to Central Asia must be rehabilitated. There are no alternatives to this project, and any dilettantish discussions of this subject must be stopped. As corroboration to that, inter alia, serve futile results of the contest, which was held in 1990 under the aegis of the Academy of Sciences and State Nature Committee of the USSR, on working out of the best concept for solution of the Aral Sea problem. 473 people took part in the contest; proposals of those were officially registered and studied by a most authoritative commission. According to the term of the contest, it was required that the problem had to be solved avoiding additional supply of donor water to the Central Asian region. In the result, it was acknowledged that none of the proposals submitted to the contest was real. After that fact more twelve years passed, but new ideas for solution of the problem did not appear. We as before continue fighting against consequences of the crisis, but we undertake nothing to eliminate its fundamental cause that consists in common water resources deficit experienced by the region.

The issue of rehabilitation of the Siberia - Central Asia canal building project was considered at the Tashkent International conference on the subject of "Problems of the Aral and Aral Sea-side areas are imperative for international cooperation" held in April of this year. The Tashkent Club "Ecosan" and Russian Foreign Center in the Republic of Uzbekistan initiated it. That conference was held like an ecological forum, in that leading water scientists and specialists from Russia and Uzbekistan, representatives of nature-management-related ministries and agencies, non-government organizations, diplomatic corps, clergy, a number of international organizations and mass media took part.
The resolution of the conference was unambiguous: to consider it necessary to resume works over the Siberia - Central Asia canal building project and its realization. At that, they had in view and specifically emphasized that those works had to be recommenced on new organization-economic base, which is determined by the existing situation, and it was needed to attract to the project implementation, in addition to budgets of the states interested in, foreign investments and private capital investments of entrepreneurs and businessmen through establishing a special joint-stock company. In my opinion, this is very reasonable.

Participants of that eco-forum spoke that the negative attitude to the project in the public mind had to be overcome and mass media, scientists, writers, representatives of non-government and public organizations should play the particular role in that. This is right too, since so far, even after the eco-forum held in Tashkent, you can hear from people acquainted with the Siberia - Central Asia canal project through hearsay: "It is terrible! Do they again intend to turn the Siberian rivers?" Well, now understand me, this article is mostly aimed at forming objective, unprejudiced belief of our public opinion regarding to this project.

Return to the main page