Russian oil spill leads to charges against plant director
The director of an Arctic power plant faces five years in jail after a major oil spill. Some 20,000 tons of diesel have flowed out of a collapsed storage structure, polluting waterways in Russia's north.
Russian investigators have charged the director of an Arctic power plant after a major oil spill, authorities announced on Monday.
Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said they had charged Vyacheslav Starostin with violating environmental protection rules. He faces up to five years in jail if found guilty.
More than 20,000 tons of diesel has leaked into the ecologically fragile area in the Norilsk region since a storage tank collapsed on May 29, prompting fears for the environment and wildlife.
The oil has contaminated local waterways and is threatening to reach the Arctic Ocean.
Prosecutors partly blamed thawing permafrost for the collapse.
Oil escaping emergency barriers
Emergency workers have deployed booms to block the fuel from spreading further into the Ambarnaya River, a tributary of Lake Pyasino. That lake feeds a river that flows into the Kara Sea arm of the Arctic.
The head of Russia's natural resources agency Rosprirodnadzor, Svetlana Radionova, denied that any fuel has reached the lake, but local inspectors say the tests being performed aren't adequate, and that fuel has likely poured into the body of water.
"If a storm comes, (the fuel) will settle down on the banks and will slowly poison the ecosystem of Norilsk and Pyasino. The consequences won't be immediate. It might also reach the Kara Sea,'' regional inspector Vasily Ryabinin told The Associated Press.
"I had said several times that we have to examine Lake Pyasino and then determine the location for tests."
Specialists from the region's Ministry of Ecology announced on Monday that they had detected high fuel concentrations beyond the floating barriers in the Ambarnaya River.
Further charges
A team of 17 investigators are determining if further charges can be brought.
The fuel spill was declared a federal emergency on June 3. On Monday, the Ministry for Development of the Far East and the Arctic announced it was planning to roll out a monitoring system for changes in permafrost in the region.
Russia charges plant director in Arctic diesel fuel spill
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities have charged the director of an Arctic power plant that leaked 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into the ecologically fragile region with violating environmental regulations, a crime that could bring five years in prison.
Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko announced the charge against Vyacheslav Starostin on Monday and said an investigation into the May 29 leak is continuing. Much of the spilled fuel fouled waterways in the Norilsk region and there is concern it could affect wildlife or make its way into the Arctic Ocean.
The fuel leaked when a storage tank collapsed; prosecutors say that melting permafrost likely caused the collapse.
Workers laid booms to block the fuel’s spread in the Ambarnaya River, a tributary of Lake Pyasino which in turn feeds a river that flows into the Kara Sea arm of the Arctic.
The head of Russia’s natural resources agency Rosprirodnadzor, Svetlana Radionova, has denied that any fuel has reached the lake.
But a regional inspector for the agency, Vasily Ryabinin, says the agency isn’t performing adequate tests and said it’s likely fuel has entered the lake.
“If a storm comes, (the fuel) will settle down on the banks and will slowly poison the ecosystem of Norilsk and Pyasino. The consequences won’t be immediate. It might also reach the Kara Sea,” he told The Associated Press. “I had said several times that we have to examine Lake Pyasino and then determine the location for tests.”
The power plant is operated by a division of Norilsk Nickel, whose giant plants in the area have made Norilsk, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) northeast of Moscow, one of the most heavily polluted cities in the world.
Russia’s Northwest Komi Republic hit by 100-ton oil spill
A ruptured pipeline in Russia’s northwestern region of Komi has leaked 100 tons of oil last week, including nine tons that flowed into a local river, posing a threat the area’s ecosystems and populated areas, the state environment watchdog Rosprirodnadzor said on Monday.
Workers battle icy waters to combat an oil spill in Russia's Komi Republic. Credit: rkomi.ru
A ruptured pipeline in Russia’s northwestern region of Komi has leaked 100 tons of oil last week, including nine tons that flowed into a local river, posing a threat the area’s ecosystems and populated areas, the state environment watchdog Rosprirodnadzor said on Monday.
The pipeline is operated by Russian oil producer Lukoil, officials have determined. It comes nearly a year after a leak from a fuel storage facility operated by Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel led to the worst Arctic oil spill in history.
Local media report that the leak came from a pipeline that connects the Oshskoye oil field in the neighboring Nenets autonomous district to a nearby Lukoil storage facility. The oil has reached the Kolva river and traveled downstream to Usinsk, a town of 45,000 people located 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
Environmentalists and officials fear the slick could travel via tributary rivers and eventually reach the Barents Sea.
Lukoil said in a release that it has dispatched 150 workers to staunch the spill, though the Meduza independent Russian news site reports that as many as 230 liquidators have arrived to eliminate the slick.
Initial estimates said that the spill involved six to seven tons of fuel. But on Sunday, Lukoil’s subsidiary, Lukoil-Komi, admitted that 90 tons of oil had spread into local soil and waterways.
“The leak occurred at a distance of about 300 meters from the coastline of the Kolva River,” the city administration of Usinsk, which declared an emergency last Wednesday, said on its social media account. “Therefore, the bulk of the oil-derived liquid […] spread into the soil, mainly occupying a natural lowland close to the leak.”
While oil booms are usually used to contain oil spills on water, there is too much moving ice on the Kolva at this time of year to use that technique, officials said.
“The work to eliminate the consequences of the oil spill will be extremely difficult because of the ice drift in the river,” Komi Republic head Vladimir Uyba told the Independent Barents Observer.
Activists have feared that Lukoil is hiding the real magnitude of yet another disastrous oil spill in Russia’s Arctic. Locals had reportedly noticed dead fish in the river on May 10, before the accident was officially confirmed, according to a report in The Moscow Times.
Social media posts quoted by Meduza bore witness to the extent of the spill before its magnitude was officially acknowledged by Rosprirodnadzor.
In February, a court slapped Norilsk Nickel with a record-breaking fine over last year’s Arctic fuel oil spill that stunned environmental observers, ordering the industrial crown jewel to pay $2 billion in damages. The fine towered over those routinely handed out by Russian authorities. In 2020, for instance, the average environmental fine levied by regulatory agencies against polluters was only about $270.
The Komi Republic, which is rich in energy holdings, has seen enormous oil spills before. In 1994, the region’s aging pipeline network sprang a leak that was officially said to have totaled 79,000 tons, or 585,000 barrels. Independent estimates put the figure at up to 2 million barrels.
Some 10,000 oil leaks and spills take place in Russia every year due to aging infrastructure and other factors, Greenpeace’s Ivan Blokov told The Moscow Times. He added that the vast majority of these leaks go unreported due to a lack of proper environmental monitoring.
Nornickel pumped out diesel from Arctic fuel tank after small leak
Russia's Nornickel has pumped out 12,200 tonnes of diesel from one of its fuel tanks in the Arctic following a leak of 20 litres, the company said on Wednesday, adding that there was no damage to the environment.
The company collected the 20 litres of fuel which leaked and pumped out the remaining fuel from the tank to other reservoirs to minimise risks.
A year ago, 21,000 tonnes of oil products leaked from a cracked tank at Nornickel's power plant into the Arctic rivers and soil. The biggest such accident in the Russian Arctic this century cost the company $2 billion in fines.
In 1994, another partly-Arctic Komi region in Russia witnessed a bigger oil spill, when its aging pipeline network sprang a leak that was officially said to have totalled 79,000 tonnes, or 585,000 barrels. Independent estimates put the figure at up to 2 million barrels.