The authorities of the Irkutsk region offered to build a pipeline bypassing Baikal.

«No« smart pipe », on which so much has been said at the presentation of the draft, can not completely exclude the risk of diversion of petroleum products in the Lake Baikal. The consequences of such an event would also be irreversible », - says in a statement.

pipeline route to the station passes over a hundred kilometers of the shoreline of Lake Baikal in the immediate vicinity of its water area - only 500-700 meters away.

In the statement, heads of executive and legislative authorities of the Irkutsk region stresses that there are alternative routes.

«We are not against the building itself. The pipeline could be built, but without compromising the unique and vulnerable natural objects, the chief of which - the pearl of the world - Lake Baikal. We do not doubt that developers will be able to find a route compromise laying pipes », - noted in a statement.

on 9 March 2006 Supreme Court ruling recognized the legitimate government of Russia on the design and construction of a unified pipeline system «East Siberia - Pacific Ocean».