ABSTRACT
In 1980 Soviet engineers built a dike to plug up a lagoon, the Kara Bogaz Gol, which was purportedly contributing to the dropping level of the Caspian Sea. An "emergency ecological situation" exists in the vicinity of the Aral Sea, where the level of water has dropped 54 percent, sandstorms have increased, the soil has become saline, and the population has been drinking untreated water from drainage canals. Pollution hasn't overlooked smaller rivers either. In Georgia, the majority of the republic's 26,000 rivers have been transformed into "open sewers for animal and human waste and industrial effluents." The link between environmental concerns and ethnic grievances must be of particular concern to the Soviet leadership. In July 1987 several hundred Armenian scientists accused the authorities of implementing "biological genocide," and in October several thousand people marched in Erevan in protest against pollution. Environmental concerns have been given a boost by glasnost.
