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hatrack

(59,442 posts)
Fri Jun 5, 2020, 08:45 AM Jun 2020

Shocked, Shocked! Rapidly Melting Permafrost Likely Cause Of 21,000-Ton Norilsk Diesel Oil Spill

A thick layer of diesel oil now covers more than 20 km of rivers around the installations of the Norilsk-Taymyr Energy Company. Practically all rivers and affluent creeks are filled up by oil products, leader of Russia’s Federal Environmental Control Service (Rosprirodnadzor) says after a visit on site. Water samples show several tens of thousands times higher concentrations of oil products than the maximum allowed level, Svetlana Radionova told President Vladimir Putin in an online video meeting on Wednesday.

According to Radionova, about 6,000 tons of diesel oil has spilled into the tundra and another about 15,000 tons have ended up in the local waterways. A layer of diesel oil as thick as 20 cm is found by the oil booms put out on the local river about 20 km away from the site of the accident, the leader of Rosprirodnadzor says.

EDIT

Emercom leader Yevgeny Sinichev says that the spill came as the ground under the reservoir sunk and subsequently ruined the foundation of the installation. It is well known that the tundra in the region over several years has experienced major warming and that the local permafrost is undergoing unprecedented melting.

According to Sinichev, the spill was followed by the breakout of fire on site. Worst hit are the rivers of Daldykan and Ambarnaya. Emercom was informed about the accident only on the 31st May, he told President Putin. More than eight tons of equipment, including oil booms, has been brought to the area, as well as two tons of sorbent materials.

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But wait! There's more!

The major spill is located in remote Arctic territories with little infrastructure and the authorities are at odd over how to clean up. None of the participants in the meeting with Putin offered any clear solution. According to Governor Uss, there is no way to deposit the diesel oil cleaned up from the river. There are no roads in the area and the rivers can not be reached by bigger boats. “Our main proposed solution is to burn the collected oil products,” Uss said, but admited that his region does not have experiences from burning such large quantities of oil. That solution is however disputed by Minister of Natural Resources Dmitry Kobylkin. “I can not imagine how we can burn such volumes of fuel in the Arctic zone of our country,” he said. “Such a fire over such a territory […], I believe it would be a major problem,” Kobylkin underlined to the President.

EDIT

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-ecology/2020/06/environmental-catastrophe-declared-one-biggest-ever-arctic-oil-spills

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