Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev is considering reviving old plans of diverting Siberian rivers to the Central Asian region, according to Interfax. Thus, Kazakhstan would get a greater inflow of fresh water for agricultural production, as was the intent with similar projects historically.During a meeting with his Uzbek colleague Islam Karimov in Astana the other week, Nazarbayev claimed that "diverting Siberian rivers will not have a negative impact on the environment" and that "populist statements that this is dangerous were wrong."
Plans for diverting the flow of Siberian rivers have been long-lived. In the 1960s, there were even plans to do so by using atomic bombs. River diversion has however shown catastrophic consequences when employed. A Soviet decision to divert river water to cotton farming hastened the dispersion of the Aral Sea, causing social, economic and environmental disaster.
During Perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev permanently put a stop to similar plans. However, the megalomanic idea of turning rivers have remained popular among some people. As late as in 2004, Russia appeared to be reviving its old river diversion plans, but thankfully enthusiasm seems to have petered out. Let us hope that this will also be the case with Nazarbayev's folly.
