Word: watered
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...land and water are not in any better shape. The riverbed of the Neva, which meanders beside the magnificent Hermitage in Leningrad, is covered with a thick layer of oil. Ill-advised dam construction and inappropriate irrigation projects have caused the level of the Aral Sea to drop 40 ft. It is possible that this body of water, the world's sixth largest sea, will not exist in 20 years. Siberia, once pristine, is laced with wastes from steel, chemical and coal industries. Worrisome numbers of dead sturgeon are floating atop the polluted Volga River, threatening the Soviets' prestigious caviar...
Nowhere are the consequences of unchecked industrialization more obvious than in Siberia's Lake Baikal basin. Nearly 30 years ago, Minlesbumprom (the Ministry of Timber, Pulp and Paper, and Wood Processing Industry) erected the Baikalsh pulp factory on the shores of this majestic body of crystal-clear water. The crescent-shaped lake holds 80% of the country's fresh water and 20% of the world's supply. Three-fourths of the lake's 2,500 fish and plant species, including the Baikal nerpa, a fresh-water seal, are unknown anywhere else in the world...
...taken to the streets to protest everything from air pollution to nuclear-power plants. In April 10,000 people demonstrated against the conditions in Nizhni Tagil. Protesters in Priozyorsk were successful in closing a major paper plant that had been dumping waste into Lake Ladoga, the source of drinking water for 6 million people. Many of the political demonstrations in the Baltic States are linked to the environment. Said Marshall Goldman, associate director of the Russian Research Center at Harvard University: "In almost every republic in which there is a movement for independence or the assertion of political rights...
Scarcely a country on earth has been spared the scourge. From the festering industrial landfills of Bonn to the waste-choked sewage drains of Calcutta, the trashing goes on. A poisonous chemical soup, the product of coal mines and metal smelters, roils Polish waters in the Bay of Gdansk. Hong Kong, with 5.7 million people and 49,000 factories within its 400 sq. mi., dumps 1,000 tons of plastic a day -- triple the amount thrown away in London. Stinking garbage and human excrement despoils Thailand's majestic River of Kings. Man's effluent is more than an assault...
...dispose of it. Foreign contractors in many African or Asian countries still build plants without including costly waste-disposal systems. Where new technology is available, it is too often inappropriate. In Lagos, Nigeria, five new incinerator plants stand idle because they can only treat garbage containing less than 20% water; most of the city's garbage is 30% to 40% liquid...