In the Black Sea - oil spill. Perhaps its area was underestimated by 400 thousand (!) Times. How did this happen? And what is the real scale of the disaster?

What happened in the Black Sea?

On Saturday evening, on August 7, at the Marine Terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (KTK; among others, the Russian state owns it). The spill occurred when loading raw materials into the Greek tanker Minerva Symphony through a remote mooring device, which is located six kilometers from the shore. The terminal itself is located in South Ozerevka (Novorossiysk). The cause of the accident, the KTK press service called the “destruction of the internal cavity of the hydraulic compensator”, which is part of the mooring device.

The consortium released a message about the accident only two days later, on Monday, August 9. The release said that the company put up bonovic fences, involved four oilfield systems and containers for gathering oil and localized the spill in the evening of August - and on August 8 the situation was “normalized and did not pose a danger to the local population, flora and fauna”. The consortium also said that about 12 cubic meters of oil hit the sea, and the spill area was 200 square meters.

However, the very next day, on August 10, the Institute of Space Research by the Russian Academy of Sciences (Iki RAS) said that, according to surveillance from the satellite, in the evening of August 8, the spill Square was more than 400 thousand times - not 200 square meters, but 85 square kilometers (this news was widely dispersed in the media only on August 11). According to IKI RAS, the spill area increased from 0.26 to 85 square kilometers over the next day after the accident.

The press service of KTK did not respond to the request of Medusa.

What is already being done?

Traces of oil pollution have already noticed in Abrau-Durso and Anapa-this is 15 and 35 kilometers along the coast of the scene of the accident, respectively. According to RBC, after the oil spill, employees of the Anapa dolphinarium on a large Utrish found oil spots on the surface of the water - “both large rainbow films and individual islands”, and “when lowering the hand in the water, a fat, transparent film remained on the water”. Dolphinarium employees put up barriers so that the animals would not be poisoned.

Alexey Knizhnikov, the head of the program of the Russian division of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on the environmental responsibility of the business, said with reference to the video and photos of local residents, which was smeared about seven kilometers of the coast between the Abrau-Durso and the Utrishi Reserve , including “very valuable plots”.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, who in 2020 oversaw the damage to the diesel fuel spill in Norilsk, instructed Rosprirodnadzor to check the information of IKI RAS and evaluate the real scale of oil spill in the Black Sea.

Rosprirodnadzor is now working at the spill. “We took samples, calculate the damage,” the representative of the department told Medusa, clarifying that the department has no opportunity to take space pictures. In addition, Rosprirodnadzor should establish the productivity of the pumping oil pumping and the time of liquid. The head of Rosprirodnadzor Svetlana Radionova wrote on Instagram that she had already sent requests to the captain of the Novorossiysk port and the local police.

On Wednesday, August 11, it became known that the Investigative Committee of Russia has brought a criminal case on the fact of pollution of the marine environment; Persons involved in the crime are established.

How bad is everything?

Thanks to the storm and wind from the shore towards the sea, oil did not naive to the shore and it will not have to be cleaned, and the stain itself may disappear by the end of August 11, since the oil particles quickly evaporate, especially with the hot weather, which is now observed in Novorossiysk, the main researcher at the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Kostyanoya believes . It was he who and his colleague discovered this oil spill on the evening of August 8 during the satellite monitoring of the water area.

However, the scribes from the WWF of Russia told Medusa that not all pollutions are visible on the surface: “The spill occurred under water, on the surface - light fractions [oil], which can spread with thin, almost micron thickness with a film; It is almost impossible to assemble it, and it spreads to colossal areas, which we saw - in almost a day the area of ​​pollution reached 100 square kilometers. In the warm season, such films really evaporate quickly, quickly break through waves and literally after a few days of significant traces of significant ones - but this does not mean that there will be no oil in the sea. ”

Heavier fractions will spread in the water thickness, believes scribes, and because of the waves, this oil will partially dissolve in the water and will have a toxic effect on the environment for a long time, and possibly pollute the coast.

The head of the WWF program of Russia on the environmental responsibility of business resembles the history of the Greek Prestige Tanker, which sank 2002 kilometers from the coast of Spain in 2002. Then 63 thousand tons of fuel oil hit the sea, and after a while oil products began to pollute the coast. As a result, the entire coast from Portugal to southwestern France turned out to be infected with oil products, more than 250 thousand birds died-more than ever in European history.

How much oil got into the Black Sea when loading Minerva Symphony is unknown. CTK data about 12 cubic meters of oil belong to the first day of the accident, when the consortium claimed that the area of ​​pollution is only 200 square meters. Rosprirodnadzor is engaged in the number of oils that have fallen into the sea.

Updated. Sea water in the bathing zone in Novorossiysk complies with hygiene norms, Rospotrebnadzor said .

Anastasia Yakreva