Oil Spill in Black Sea Strait Could Be Region's Worst Environmental Disaster
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.13.07
Image courtesy of Rossiya TV Channel/AP
Some are already calling it the worst ecological disaster to hit the region in years; this past Sunday, as many as ten ships, including a Russian oil tanker, were sunk or run aground by a strong storm that pelted the Black Sea and Azov Sea. The tanker, Volganeft-139, dumped almost half of its 1.3 million gallon (5 million liters) cargo into the strait.
Nakhichevan, one of two freighters broken up during the storm, released close to 7,150 tons of sulfur into the waters before taking the lives of most of its crew. Unlike the recent spill in San Francisco Bay, it seems as though both local and national authorities have been fairly quick to respond, though questions remain about why the oil tanker was allowed to set sail in the first place - according to a regional prosecutor, it was only designed to transport oil on rivers.
Authorities are hoping that the storm, which is expected to rage on for up to two days, won't claim any more vessels. While they are hopeful that the sulfur won't cause extensive damage to the environment, they are concerned about the long-term harm posed by the massive spill.
"This problem may take a few years to solve. Fuel oil is a heavy substance and it is now sinking to the seabed. This is a very serious environmental disaster," grimly concluded Mitvol, deputy head of an environmental watchdog.
Via ::The Moscow Times: Warning of Ecological Disaster as Oil Tanker Sinks in Storm (newspaper), ::National Geographic News: Oil Spill in Black Sea Strait May Be Worst in Years (news website)
See also: ::58000 Gallons of Oil Spill into San Francisco Bay, ::Touring an Oil Spill Twice the Size of Exxon Valdez — in Brooklyn, ::A Picture is Worth ... All Oiled Up and Nowhere to Go
Maybe not the largest in "Russia"
From http://www.american.edu/ted/KOMI.HTM
The oil spill near the town of Usinsk in Northern Russia (Komi
republic) is one of the most serious environmental disasters of the
decade. The pipeline just south of the Arctic Circle had been
leaking since February 1994 but the oil was contained within a dike
built for this purpose. On October 1st, the dike collapsed because
of cold and snow. Following the collapse, around *102,000" tones of
oil began to pour onto the Siberian tundra. The spill reached the
Kolva River, a tributary of the Pechora River, which falls into the
Barents Sea. Life within the rivers as well as the fragile
environment of the Artic have been endangered by this oil spill.
Experts estimate the spill to be eight times greater than the Exxon
Valdez oil spill.
FWIW a metric ton is equal to about 7.5 barrels of oil or at 42 US gallon per barrel, a metric ton of oil is 315 gallons. The spill was 102K tons. You do the math, I was there - quite the mess.
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