VOTKINSK, Udmurtia, May 5 (AVN) - Given the recent ratification of START-2 the republic's "greens" are protesting the construction of a solid-propellant missile engines utilisation plant here, Vasily Cherepanov, one of the leaders of the ecological movement told the Military News Agency.
According to him a construction of such an installation here would be grievous for the environment. The plant will be located only three kilometres away from the Votkinsk reservoir which provides the town with potable water. Given the local "wind-rose" the exhaust of the plant will cover not only Votkinsk and Chaikovsky but also the Chastinsky and Elovsky regions of Udmurtia.
Some 5,000 of the republic's residents have opposed the construction of the plant in special postcards, Cherepanov said. 3,000 of them were sent to president-elect Vladimir Putin, 1,000 to Governor Gennady Igumnov and 1,000 to Alexander Volkov, chairman of the Udmurtia State Council.
In three years it is planned to utilise as many as 916 engines, largely weighing some 49t each.