Olga Speranskaya

Who is Olga Speranskaya?

Olga Speranskaya has been Director of the Chemical Safety Program at the Eco-Accord Center for Environment and Sustainable Development since 1997. Speranskaya has led many campaigns against the use of organic pollutants, fought to ban the burial and transport of hazardous chemicals, and provided information to government decision-makers for policy changes, in many different countries. When the hammer and sickle finally fell in the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago, hundreds of thousands of tons of obsolete pesticides and other chemicals were left behind, scattered about the 15 newly independent republics. Stored in torn bags and collapsing sheds, the chemical cocktail was allowed to seep into groundwater and from there it passed into the surrounding animal and human populations.

The problem had grown so bad, says Russian activist Olga Speranskaya, that a new type of hammer had to be forged, something with which to bang away at the government, "to push the authorities to clean up these sites." The 46-year-old physicist has been pounding Moscow for more than a decade now, demanding it secure stockpiles of chemicals such as DDT — long banned in the West — and help clean up the enormous mess left by the Soviets.