Oil spill in the Rus­si­an Arc­tic

A serious oil spill occur­red in the Rus­si­an Arc­tic in late April. Lea­ders of the depart­ment of the envi­ron­ment of the auto­no­mous Nenets obser­ved an oil foun­tain, about 25 met­res high, for at least one day on April 20 and 21 on the field Trebs, which is loca­ted on the main­land of Rus­sia south of the island of Nova­ya Zem­lya. They say it took at least 36 hours to get the leaka­ge under con­trol. Until then, an esti­ma­ted 2,200 tons of oil were spil­led out over at least 1,5 squa­re kilo­me­t­res of tun­dra, inclu­ding reinde­er gra­zing grounds. At least initi­al­ly, local water­ways are said to remain unhar­med.

The ope­ra­tor of the Trebs field, the Rus­si­an com­pa­ny Bash­neft, is exer­cis­ing a very rest­ric­ti­ve infor­ma­ti­on poli­cy, which makes it very dif­fi­cult to judge the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment.

Accor­ding to Green­peace Rus­sia, the Rus­si­an indus­try is respon­si­ble for near 20.000 oil spills – annu­al­ly. Most of them do not lead to con­se­quen­ces for the ope­ra­tors and hap­pen wit­hout any public awa­re­ness.

Source: Barents­ob­ser­ver

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