When the construction dust has settled and the athletes strut out in front of thousands of fans at the Sochi Olympics opening ceremony on Feb. 7, the cameras are not likely to show much of the surrounding environment, partly because much of it has been destroyed in preparation for the games.
Unlike many past Olympics venues, such as London or Vancouver, Sochi did not have much existing infrastructure on which to build. Sochi was a resort town surrounded by marshland, not concrete and asphalt, and much of the terrain is a part of the Sochi National Park. Russia's branch of the World Wildlife Fund has said called the land a "specially protected area with the highest number of species in the whole of Russia."
See also: $8.5 Billion Olympics Railroad Leaves Environmental Ruin
Consequently, many have questioned the wisdom of selecting these wetlands as the site for the Olympics — Both because it's difficult and potentially dangerous to build on and construction can wreak havoc on the area's abundant wildlife.
As the games approach, information trickling out of Russia indicates developers have largely disregarded potential environmental consequences of the construction. But no one knows to what extent, because if Russian officials conducted environmental impact studies before they broke ground, those studies haven't been released to the public.
"From a scientific perspective or even a biological perspective there's a lot of reason to be concerned," Allen Hershkowitz, Ph.D., told Mashable. He's a senior scientist at the National Resources Defense Council, which advises Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association on their environmental policies.
"I would love to get a good analysis of that potential [environmental] impact, but whether or not we do has everything to do with the kind of transparency the government wants to provide," Hershkowitz added.
Russian officials, though, have been about as transparent as the walls they're erecting all over Sochi. Officials haven't allowed reporters or environmental activists to get near waste areas, have blocked groups from getting too close to construction zones, and have released little information regarding the construction's environmental impact.
In the seven years since Sochi won its Olympics bid, workers have erected 25,000 new hotel rooms, built 225 miles of road, drilled 22 new tunnels in the surrounding mountains, built new apartment buildings, poured new sidewalk, and more.
"Normally it would require three years for this kind of a baseline [environmental impact] study," Igor Chestin, head of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund, told Mashable. "That would mean the whole construction could only have started in 2010 at the earliest, and that, of course, simply wasn't enough time for completing the construction."
Workers have erected buildings on soft land that might not support them. Asphalt and concrete now cover what used to be vegetation, which could prevent water from reaching the wetlands. Light pollution and construction noise now permeate land that used to be dark and quiet at night.

An excavator demolishes a building in Sochi on May 15, 2013. The three-story apartment building began leaning after a traffic tunnel being constructed for the 2014 Winter Olympics collapsed nearby, the local media said.
Image: Image: AFP/Getty Images
An $8.5 billion railroad from Sochi to the mountain resort that will host skiing events has killed off populations of salmon and bats and disrupted the migratory patterns and hibernation habits of other animals. Construction waste — bits of concrete and garbage that generally cannot be recycled — has been dumped wherever there is open space, which has raised concerns that the waste might ooze into Sochi's water supply.
Much of this waste-dumping is not only environmentally unfriendly, but reportedly illegal under Russian law.
Chestin says Russian construction companies haven't had much choice but to dump the excess materials wherever they can, because there was never a plan for how the garbage would be disposed. In other words, the government has allowed companies to illegally dump waste in convenient locations because, otherwise, the job could never be finished in time for the Games.
And that's far from the only legal relaxation that has enabled Olympics construction to carry on in Sochi, according to the WWF. Chestin's organization says nature conservation legislation was weakened before the bid was awarded to Russia, allowing athletic events to be hosted in national parks.
In January of 2007, according to the WWF, Russia eliminated the need to consider the advice of environmental experts before undergoing major construction projects. Nearly three years later, logging laws were amended to let workers eradicate rare species of trees and shrubs to make way for buildings and roads.
The construction is meant to turn Sochi into a world-class resort that is a year-round tourist destination for people around the globe. But many environmentalists don't believe the infrastructure will hold up to constant foot traffic. Some residents have also said tourists are likely to choose to travel to Turkey instead, which is just across the Black Sea and there, they claim, prices are cheaper and services better.
"There's sort of a tragedy about that — massive amounts of construction waste, massive amounts of energy, massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions," Robert Engelman, president of the WorldWatch Institute, told Mashable. "After [the games], it's over. So all that was done for next to nothing."
The level of environmental damage in Sochi remains a mystery, and whether it will all have been done for an Olympics venue that turns into a ghost town is something that remains to be seen. But the idea that a biologically rich corner of the world may have been trashed for a three-week performance is something that eats at environmentalists.
"I think the biggest concern is we don't know what the biggest concern is," Hershkowitz said.
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