Translated material
Seasickness
Environmentalists disagree on the global catastrophe in the Sea of Azov
The storm in the Kerch Strait area, which turned out to be fatal for several cargo ships, could also lead to the ecological death of the Azov Sea. In any case, independent environmentalists have already stated that as a result of a spill and settling of oil products to the bottom, the already oxygen-deprived shallow sea will become virtually unsuitable for the life of aquatic inhabitants. The official commission of Rosprirodnadzor, which flew to the Krasnodar Territory yesterday to study the environmental situation on site, has so far refrained from making any assessments. Deputy head of the environmental department Oleg Mitvol limited himself to a reassuring statement that there is no threat of a new oil spill in the Sea of Azov, indicating as the main task the organization of cleanup of the already polluted part of the coast.Let us remind you that as a result of the break of one of the sunken barges with oil products, which was located in a roadstead south of the Kavkaz port in the Kerch Strait, according to preliminary data, more than a thousand tons of fuel oil spilled into the sea. In addition, according to some estimates, as a result of the crash of a cargo ship with sulfur in these waters, up to 2.6 thousand tons of metalloid could have entered the water. “According to the latest data, 30 thousand birds died on the coast and the same number were stained with fuel oil, that is, most likely they will also die,” RIA Novosti cites a source in the administration of the Krasnodar region.
The country's independent ecologists almost unanimously declared that the disaster in the Kerch Strait, unprecedented over the past few decades, will inevitably lead not only to the death of birds, but to the mass death of all inhabitants of the Sea of Azov. As Alexey Kiselyov, head of the Greenpeace toxic program, told Vremya Novostey, the first consequences of an oil spill in the form of a dying bird are quite predictable, since a still raging storm washes the fuel oil slick onto the shore, and cleaning it up in such conditions is extremely difficult. According to him, the scale of the oil slick and the direction of its movement are not yet very clear, and therefore it is difficult to calculate which part of the coast will be polluted by the toxic surf. “For example, due to a spill of only 200 tons of oil products in Lake Onega that week, a spot 7.5 km in size was formed,” the ecologist noted.
At a special meeting held yesterday, the Governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Alexander Tkachev, assured that the authorities had taken a set of measures to eliminate fuel oil and sulfur pollution in the Kerch Strait. According to him, special teams are being created to clean the coast. In the afternoon, representatives of the Southern Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that more than 160 tons of oil products had been collected along the coastline of the Kerch Strait.
However, mechanical work with shovels on the shore, according to Greenpeace representatives, is not the most difficult thing. The consequences of liquid fuel settling to the bottom can be much more tragic for the environment. According to Greenpeace estimates, in the first 24 hours, up to 300 thousand tons of fuel oil had already settled to the bottom of the sea. And according to experts from the international Ecodefense group, at least 30% of spilled hydrocarbons will end up at the bottom. “Hypothetically, cleaning up the soil in the Sea of Azov is possible. This is a shallow sea, and the fuel oil lies quite clearly at the bottom. Moreover, this is a navigable sea, and shipping channels are periodically cleared,” says Mr. Kiselev. “But I’m not sure that this will still be implemented in practice.”
Co-chairman of the international environmental group Ecodefense, Vladimir Slivyak, also believes that the already difficult ecological state of the Azov Sea, in which aeration (oxygen saturation) processes are difficult, may simply become “hopeless.” Water pollution with heavy hydrocarbon elements, according to environmentalists, will lead to a serious lack of oxygen in the water. “If before this the Azov Sea was just a puddle, now it can become an oil-polluted puddle,” Mr. Slivyak told Vremya Novostey. In his opinion, first of all, the consequences of the disaster will affect the fishing industry of the region, since in the next few years the fish in the sea will be poisoned by toxic oil products.
In turn, state environmentalists do not yet share the panicky sentiments of their colleagues. Not only Rosprirodnadzor, but also less formalized institutions are in no hurry to publish their assessments and forecasts. For example, the Krasnodar Fisheries Research Institute stated that they only heard about the disaster on television. And Vladimir Komchatov, head of the State Oceanographic Institute (GOIN) of Roshydromet, which will monitor chemical pollution, told Vremya Novostei that scientists still have neither the exact coordinates of the spill nor data on the size of the oil slick. “Everyone is busy saving people. In addition, it is still unknown where the wind will drive the dirt - maybe to the shores of Ukraine, maybe to our Caucasian coast,” he explained to Vremya Novostey. “In any case, it is not even possible to collect fuel oil from the surface in such windy weather.”
Mr. Komchatov is sure that it is premature to call what happened a disaster, as well as to talk about possible consequences. “Windy weather will not allow oil products to settle to the bottom, and sulfur does not dissolve in water, so it does not pose a threat to the ecology of the sea at all,” he explained.