The Sov­jet Uni­on has „depo­si­ted“ vast amounts of radio­ac­ti­ve sub­s­tances on the sea bot­tom in the Rus­si­an sec­tor of the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea (east of Nova­ya Zem­lya), inclu­ding nuclear was­te, reac­tors from sub­ma­ri­nes and ships and ves­sels with nuclear com­pon­ents or car­go that sank or were sunk. This is gene­ral­ly no news. Now, Rus­si­an aut­ho­ri­ties have made an inven­to­ry list of nuclear sub­s­tances on sea bot­toms adja­cent to Nor­we­gi­an waters available to Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties. The quan­ti­ties have sur­pri­sed even insi­ders. On the list are not, as belie­ved so far, 11,000 con­tai­ners with nuclear was­te, but at least 17,000 (yes, sevent­housand), addi­tio­nal­ly 19 ships with nuclear car­go, 5 reac­tor sec­tions, 3 nuclear sub­ma­ri­nes, nuclear fuel from the ice­brea­k­er Lenin and „735 other radio­ac­ti­ve units“, wha­te­ver this means. And of cour­se nobo­dy knows if this list is com­pre­hen­si­ve.

Now, Rus­si­an and Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties make joint efforts to map the exact posi­ti­ons and con­di­ti­ons of the nuclear gra­vey­ards.

So far, inves­ti­ga­ti­ons have pro­ven the waters and bio­ta of the Barents Sea to have very low levels of radio­ac­ti­vi­ty. This may chan­ge, when reac­tors or con­tai­ners are dama­ged in the future. In sin­gle cases, even the deve­lo­p­ment of chain reac­tions up to nuclear explo­si­ons is belie­ved to be pos­si­ble by envi­ron­men­ta­lists. Offi­ci­als have not con­firm­ed this.

Lar­ge efforts have alre­a­dy been made, also with finan­cial and prac­ti­cal sup­port from the EU and Nor­way, to retre­a­ve radio­ac­ti­ve wrecks, reac­tors and was­te from the coasts of the Kola Pen­in­su­la. The efforts are obvious­ly to be increased and con­tin­ued to avo­id major dis­as­ters for envi­ron­ment and peo­p­le. The long-term dis­po­sal of radio­ac­ti­ve is a ques­ti­on with very serious impli­ca­ti­ons for envi­ron­ment and socie­ties and so far an unans­we­red ques­ti­on.

Source: Aften­pos­ten, 28 August 2012

On thirsday the 21th of august one per­son was kil­led in front of Esmark­bree (Esmark Gla­cier) during a Zodiac crui­se. A pie­ce of ice bro­ke down from the near­ly 25 m high egde oft the gla­cial front. The exact cir­cum­s­tances oft the acci­dent will be inves­ti­ga­ted during the next weeks.

Esmark­breen ist situa­ted insi­de of Ymer­buk­ta (Ymer Bay)on the nor­t­hern side of Isfjord (Ice Fjord).

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten 33/2012

The sub­ject of Rus­si­an heli­c­op­ter traf­fic is again sur­fa­cing as a mat­ter of con­tro­ver­sy bet­ween Rus­si­ans and Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties. Within their inten­ti­ons of incre­asing tou­rist acti­vi­ties in Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den, whe­re the hotel is soon to be ope­ned again, the Rus­si­ans want to offer heli­c­op­ter trans­port from Lon­gye­ar­by­en to their sett­le­ments on a com­mer­cial basis (flight­see­ing is gene­ral­ly not allo­wed in Spits­ber­gen).

They refer to the non-dis­cri­mi­na­ti­on prin­ci­ple of the Spits­ber­gen-Trea­ty (often cal­led Sval­bard Trea­ty, but the ori­gi­nal text does not know the term Sval­bard), which gives all signa­to­ry count­ries and their citi­zens equal rights. Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties point out that Nor­we­gi­an avia­ti­on laws to only allow Nor­we­gi­an com­pa­nies to offer com­mer­cial avia­ti­on ser­vices within Nor­way. In the end, it boils down to the ques­ti­on if Nor­we­gi­an natio­nal law is to be rated hig­her than the inter­na­tio­nal trea­ty which was signed in 1920 and came into power in 1925, which gives Nor­way »the full and abso­lu­te sove­reig­n­ty of Nor­way over the Archi­pe­la­go of Spits­ber­gen…«, no less, no more. Later in the same year a natio­nal Nor­we­gi­an law declared that »Sval­bard is part of the King­dom of Nor­way«.

Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te sci­en­tists have instal­led auto­ma­tic came­ras at 5 wal­rus colo­nies (Lågøya, Storøya, Kapp Lee, André­e­tan­gen, Havmerra/Tusenøyane). Preli­mi­na­ry results indi­ca­te an over­all popu­la­ti­on growth in recent years. A count from 2006 had resul­ted in rough­ly 3,000 wal­rus­ses in Spitsbergen’s waters.

Ano­ther inte­res­t­ing preli­mi­na­ry result is the remar­kab­ly low sen­si­ti­vi­ty to dis­tur­ban­ce by polar bears or tou­rists. Inspi­te of num­e­rous visits, no evi­dence has been found for wal­rus­ses being dis­tur­bed by tou­rists.

The cam­ping site near Lon­gye­ar­by­en is now, after seve­ral owner­ship chan­ges through recent years, final­ly under Dutch con­trol. Exclu­si­ve owner is now Michel­le van Dijk, who owned the site tog­e­ther with Andre­as Umbreit from Ger­ma­ny in the past. She has alre­a­dy star­ted work to make the cam­ping site nicer and more user-fri­end­ly.

Many are around in the busi­ness of polar expe­di­ti­on crui­sing, some stay for a while but a very few keep it going for more than just a few years. Anja Fleig was among­st the most high­ly respec­ted expe­di­ti­on lea­ders we have known in recent years.

On July 14, 2012, Anja pas­sed away far too ear­ly in her young life after a dise­a­se she had fought for a long time.

Tog­e­ther with many fri­ends and col­le­agues, the aut­hor of the­se lines, who has known her sin­ce the came to Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the late 1990s, will miss her as the good per­son, the good fri­end, the good gui­de and expe­di­ti­on lea­der she was.

Few, if any, had bet­ter know­ledge, more expe­ri­ence and hig­her stan­dards as expe­di­ti­on lea­der than Anja. Having lived her adven­tur­ous, exci­ting life for more than just a few sea­sons, she had had amp­le oppor­tu­ni­ties to make expe­ri­en­ces that are once-in-a-life­time or sim­ply out of reach for most others. A litt­le com­fort may be found in the idea that Anja saw much more of the natu­ral beau­ty of this world than others who have the chan­ce to stay around twice as long.

Anja got mar­ried to her hus­band Tim in 2009 in Spits­ber­gen on their floa­ting second home, the Polar Star. Tog­e­ther, they have a child born in 2010.

This summer’s Spits­ber­gen mys­tery is the dis­ap­pearing of 40 boots from a chan­ging room in the mining sett­le­ment Sveagru­va. No less than 40 boots have vanis­hed. The point is, howe­ver, that only the right boots are gone and the left ones are still stan­ding the­re. Now ever­y­bo­dy is gues­sing what might have hap­pen­ed: an inva­si­on of one-foo­ted ali­ens? Trolls? Right-wing extre­mists who hate ever­y­thing on the left side? …?

Local­ly, it is taken with a sen­se of humour, but ever­y­bo­dy is curious about the sto­ry behind it. And the­re is a bunch of 40 guys who would quite like to have their boots back.

Source: Aften­pos­ten

The small crui­se ship MS Expe­di­ti­on (100 pas­sen­gers, 57 crew) touch­ed ground near Isis­pyn­ten, east of Nord­aus­t­land, on 23rd July. The hull suf­fe­r­ed minor dama­ge and took a small volu­me of water. Accor­ding to the ship owner and Nor­we­gi­an offi­ci­als, neither peo­p­le nor the envi­ron­ment were at any time end­an­ge­red. The ship could later get free and return to Lon­gye­ar­by­en with its own engi­ne power.

This was alre­a­dy the third event of this kind in Spits­ber­gen this sum­mer. On 23rd June, the „Natio­nal Geo­gra­phic Explo­rer“ ran aground in Engelskbuk­ta, south of Kongsfjord. On 10 July, the day trip boat „Polar Girl“ mana­ged to hit the bot­tom near Gru­mant­by­en.

All groun­dings took place while the ships were on sight­see­ing crui­se near the shore at low speed and final­ly went over wit­hout any serious dra­ma. Nevert­hel­ess, the­se events are most­ly unac­cep­ta­ble in are­as wit­hout com­pre­hen­si­ve SAR and oil spill faci­li­ties. (The­re are excep­ti­ons: small, strong boats can usual­ly tole­ra­te “con­trol­led” groun­dings wit­hout any dif­fi­cul­ty, this is occa­sio­nal­ly even done deli­bera­te­ly. It is more or less a dai­ly rou­ti­ne for exam­p­le for flat­bot­tom sai­ling ships in cer­tain are­as of the Dutch coast. But cer­tain­ly not by any ship remo­te­ly simi­lar to the MS Expe­di­ti­on in arc­tic waters).

A major pro­blem for the safe­ty of navi­ga­ti­on in Spits­ber­gen is the lack of good charts. The Nor­we­gi­an map­ping aut­ho­ri­ties have this year given prio­ri­ty to other are­as in main­land Nor­way rather than Spits­ber­gen. Given cur­rent working pace, it will take seve­ral gene­ra­ti­ons to map the waters around the who­le archi­pe­la­go pro­per­ly. Inspi­te of the offi­ci­al poli­ti­cal prio­ri­ty that the nor­t­hern are­as are sup­po­sed to enjoy („nor­d­om­rå­de­sats­ing“), Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties seem not to take nau­ti­cal safe­ty in Sval­bard waters important enough to allo­ca­te resour­ces for pro­per map­ping.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten 29/2012