No less than in our own corporate media for Anchorage, the Anchorage Daily News, did we see this heartbreaking story today about what has been going on in Russia, with their oil/gas industries over the last several decades. It was distributed by the U.S.'s corporate-owned Associated Press, so it may have gotten published in many other U.S. city's newspapers as well.
http://www.adn.com/2011/12/17/2223143/toxic-legacy-russian-oil-spills.html
Russian oil spills spread devastation
By NATALIYA VASILYEVA
Associated Press
Associated Press
Published: December 18th, 2011 04:35 PM
Last Modified: December 18th, 2011 04:44 PM
Last Modified: December 18th, 2011 04:44 PM
USINSK, Russia --
This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe.
Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output.
Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil, kills all plants that grow on it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds. Half a million tons every year get into rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, the government says, upsetting the delicate environmental balance in those waters.
It's part of a legacy of environmental tragedy that has plagued Russia and the countries of its former Soviet empire for decades, from the nuclear horrors of Chernobyl in Ukraine to lethal chemical waste in the Russian city of Dzerzhinsk and paper mill pollution seeping into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds one-fifth of the world's supply of fresh water.
Oil spills in Russia are less dramatic than disasters in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, more the result of a drip-drip of leaked crude than a sudden explosion. But they're more numerous than in any other oil-producing nation, including insurgency-hit Nigeria, and combined they spill far more than anywhere else in the world, scientists say.
"Oil and oil products get spilled literally every day," said Dr. Grigory Barenboim, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Water Problems.
No hard figures on the scope of oil spills in Russia are available but Greenpeace estimates that at least 5 million tons leak every year in a country producing about 500 million tons a year.
Dr. Irina Ivshina of the government-financed Institute of the Environment and Genetics of Microorganisms supports the 5 million ton estimate, as does the World Wildlife Fund. The figure is derived from two sources: Russian state-funded research that shows 10 percent to 15 percent of Russian oil leakage enters rivers, and a 2010 report commissioned by the Natural Resources Ministry that shows nearly 500,000 tons slips into northern Russian rivers every year and flows into the Arctic.
'INCIDENTS' UNREPORTED
The estimate is considered conservative: The Russian Economic Development Ministry in a report last year estimated spills at up to 20 million tons per year.
That astonishing number, for which the ministry offered no elaboration, appears to be based partly on the fact most small leaks in Russia go unreported. Under Russian law, leaks of less than 8 tons are classified only as "incidents" and carry no penalties.
Russian oil spills also elude detection because most happen in the vast swaths of unpopulated tundra and conifer forest in the north, caused either by ruptured pipes or leakage from decommissioned wells.
Weather conditions in most oil provinces are brutal, with temperatures routinely dropping below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit in winter. That makes pipelines brittle and prone to rupture unless they are regularly replaced and their condition monitored.
Asked by The Associated Press to comment, the Natural Resources Ministry and the Energy Ministry said they have no data on oil spills and each referred to the other ministry for further inquiries.
BLACK-HAT AWARD
Even counting only the 500,000 tons officially reported to be leaking into northern rivers every year, Russia is by far the worst oil polluter in the world.
• Nigeria, which produces one-fifth as much oil as Russia, logged 110,000 tons spilled in 2009, much of that due to rebel attacks on pipelines.
• The U.S., the world's third-largest oil producer, logged 341 pipeline ruptures in 2010 -- compared with Russia's 18,000 -- with 17,600 tons of oil leaking as a result, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Spills have averaged 14,900 tons a year between 2001 and 2010.
• Canada, which produces oil in weather conditions as harsh as Russia's, [hold it, this is not quite so...average winter temps. in nrn/ern Siberia are the coldest in the northern hemisphere, significantly colder than nrn Canada's, eds.. ] does not see anything near Russia's scale of disaster. Eleven pipeline accidents were reported to Canada's Transport Safety Board last year, while media reports of leaks, ranging from sizable spills to a tiny leak in a farmer's backyard, come to a total of 7,700 tons a year.
• In Norway, Russia's northwestern oil neighbor, spills amounted to some 3,000 tons a year in the past few years, said Hanne Marie Oeren, head of the oil and gas section at Norway's Climate and Pollution Agency.
MOVING INTO THE ARCTIC
Now that Russian companies are moving to the Arctic to tap vast but hard-to-get oil and gas riches, scientists voice concerns that Russia's outdated technologies and shoddy safety record make for a potential environmental calamity there.
Gazpromneft, an oil subsidiary of the gas giant Gazprom, is preparing to drill for oil in the Arctic's Pechora Sea, even as environmentalists complain that the drilling platform is outdated and the company is not ready to deal with potential accidents.
Government scientists acknowledge that Russia does not currently have the required technology to develop Arctic fields but say it will be years before the country actually starts drilling.
"We must start the work now, do the exploration and develop the technology so that we would be able to ... start pumping oil from the Arctic in the middle of this century," Alexei Kontorovich, chairman of the council on geology, oil and gas fields at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told a recent news conference.
The same academy's Barenboim said, however, that Russian technology is developing too slowly to make it a safe bet for Arctic exploration.
"Over the past years, environmental risks have increased more sharply compared to how far our technologies, funds, equipment and skills to deal with them have advanced," he said.
RUSSIA'S BIGGEST SPILL
In 1994, the republic of Komi, where Usinsk lies 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle, became the scene of Russia's largest oil spill when an estimated 100,000 tons splashed from an aging pipeline.
It killed plants and animals, and polluted up to 25 miles of two local rivers, killing thousands of fish. In villages most affected, respiratory diseases rose by 28 percent in the year after the leak.
Seen from a helicopter, the oil production area is dotted with pitch-black ponds. Fresh leaks are easy to find once you step into the tundra north of Usinsk. To spot a leak, find a dying tree. Fir trees with drooping gray, dry branches look as though scorched by a wildfire. They are growing in soil polluted by oil.
Usinsk spokeswoman Tatyana Khimichuk said the city administration had no powers to influence oil company operations.
"Everything that happens at the oil fields is Lukoil's responsibility," she said, referring to Russia's second largest oil company, which owns a network of pipelines in the region.
Komi's environmental protection officials also blamed oil companies. The local prosecutor's office said in a report this year that the main problem is "that companies that extract hydrocarbons focus on making profits rather than how to use the resources rationally."
REPAIRS COST MONEY
Valery Bratenkov works as a foreman at oil fields outside Usinsk.
After hours, he is with a local environmental group. [he's lucky to be alive! he would've been murdered long ago in Colombia or Nigeria, environmental/labour activists are murdered there frequently, this is a slightly positive reflection on Russia, at least, eds.] Bratenkov used to point out to his Lukoil bosses that oil spills routinely happen under their noses and asked them to repair the pipelines. "They were offended and said that costs too much money," he said.
Activists like Bratenkov find it hard if not impossible to hold authorities to account in the area since some 90 percent of the local population comprises oil workers and their families who have moved from other regions of Russia, and depend on the industry for their livelihood.
Representatives of Lukoil denied claims that they try to conceal spills and leaks, and said that no more than 2.7 tons leaked last year from its production areas in Komi.
Ivan Blokov, campaign director at Greenpeace Russia, who studies oil spills, said the situation in Komi is replicated across Russia's oil-producing regions, which stretch from the Black Sea in the southwest to the Chinese border in Russia's Far East.
"It is happening everywhere," Blokov said. "It's typical of any oil field in Russia. The system is old and it is not being replaced in time by any oil company in the country."
NO MORE FISHING, HUNTING
What also worries scientists and environmentalists is that oil spills are not confined to abandoned or aging fields. Alarmingly, accidents happen at brand new pipelines, said Barenboim.
At least 400 tons leaked from a new pipeline in two separate accidents in Russia's Far East last year, according to media reports and oil companies. Transneft's pipeline that brings Russian oil from Eastern Siberia to China was put into operation just months before the two spills happened.
The oil industry in Komi has been sapping nature for decades, killing or forcing out reindeer and fish. Locals like the 63-year-old Bratenkov are afraid that when big oil departs, only poisoned terrain will be left in its wake.
"Fishing, hunting -- it's all gone," Bratenkov said.
Bjoern H. Amland contributed to this report from Oslo, Norway.
What an amazing story, just think about the devastation going on in Russia/Siberia every year. And which we will be seeing in this country too, if current political trends continue. Alaska's own esteemed Senator, Ms. Lisa Murkowski, is introducing legislation to shift air quality monitoring/enforcement of our oil industry's exploration and production operations from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to the Department of the Interior. Why? Because the DOI is headed by former oil industry people and is not an independent government entity, in the sense that we would like to think. It routinely responds to oil industry requests and withdraws, delays, or refuses to consider regulatory action upon those it is chartered to monitor. We think it would be reasonable to assume that oil industry lobbyists/executives, wrote this legislation for her.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg, as the overtly-corporate owned/fascist Congressional Republicans continue to push for the idea to actually gut/eliminate the EPA altogether! It must be that they think they can have clean/safe air/water/food in their gated communities, or else eventually live underground or in space, after destroying the Earth's ecosystems.
And then there's this, also ocurring in Russia/Siberia:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice-releases-deadly-greenhouse-gas-6276134.html
This is the scenario we have been reporting on as a future possibility previously.
http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/08/ac-cu-iii-update-it-gets-worse-and-can.html
To put this in perspective though, other researchers are saying that this is not the start of the "methane time bomb" i.e., melting of frozen underwater and permafrost-encased methane deposits which would lead to runaway greenhouse warming. That the Independent newspaper is engaging in tabloid-style journalism. The jury is still out, as the following shows.
Siberian shelf methane emissions not tied to modern warming
American Geophysical Union, Washington, D. C., USA
Eight thousand years ago, a rising sea inundated the vast permafrost regions off the northern coast of Siberia. Comprising the modern east Siberian shelf, the region holds enormous quantities of methane hydrates bottled up in remnant subterranean permafrost zones that are, in turn, trapped beneath the ocean waters. Records of seafloor water temperature showing a 2.1°C rise since 1985, coupled with recent observations of methane emissions from the seabed, have led some scientists to speculate that the rising temperatures have thawed some of the subsurface permafrost, liberating the trapped methane. The connection is compelling, but an investigation by Dmitrenko et al. into the sensitivity of permafrost to rising temperatures suggests the two observations are not connected. Using a permafrost model forced with paleoclimate data to analyze changes in the depth of frozen bottom sediments, the authors found that roughly 1 meter of the subsurface permafrost thawed in the past 25 years, adding to the 25 meters of already thawed soil. Forecasting the expected future permafrost thaw, the authors found that even under the most extreme climatic scenario tested this thawed soil growth will not exceed 10 meters by 2100 or 50 meters by the turn of the next millennium. The authors note that the bulk of the methane stores in the east Siberian shelf are trapped roughly 200 meters below the seafloor, indicating that the recent methane emissions observations were likely not connected to the modest modern permafrost thaw. Instead, they suggest that the current methane emissions are the result of the permafrost's still adjusting to its new aquatic conditions, even after 8000 years. (Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, doi:10.1029/2011JC007218, 2011)
Published 6 December 2011.
Citation: (2011), Siberian shelf methane emissions not tied to modern warming, Eos Trans. AGU, 92(49), 464, doi:10.1029/2011EO490014.
We certainly would like to believe the researchers who wrote this paper, and presented it at this year's American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Since this is such an important topic, the Alaska Progressive Review will be sure to continually review the latest research regarding these Arctic methane releases, and report on it to you.
Meanwhile, here in South-Central Alaska, we are enduring our fourth "chinook" windstorm in three weeks, with one more expected, this coming wed/thu! Since the staff of the Alaska Progressive Review has only spent one winter here previously, we solicited long-time residents about this. None of them can ever remember having this many in a winter, and certainly not consecutively. There have been much stronger ones, but two of the four have been quite potent, and have had some effect on the local environment. Let's look at that.
This is a "POES" infrared image from 04 DEC, when we had our strongest storm of this series. POES are polar-orbiting satellites that rotate quickly around the earth roughly 600-800 KM above, and take image swaths. Since they are so close to the Earth, they offer better resolution, the downside being the swaths have to be stitched together, and they only pass over the same area twice daily. There is a deep low pressure system in the Bering Sea with a strong front ahead of it, just beginning to move over South-Central Alaska. All of our storms have followed similar trajectories, some a little further east, some further west. But all bringing strong winds and warming. Why? Because strong persistent high pressure ridging along the West Coast of North America has been forcing these lows along these paths, right into the eastern Bering Sea or Gulf of Alaska.
The corresponding 500 millibar analysis (which meteorologists use to track the major weather features in the "jet stream" flow) is rather interesting. A very strong high pressure ridge to the south of Alaska has forced a long trajectory of south-southwest flow into Alaska, a pattern we have been seeing alot more of in the past 10-20 years here. This is how more heat is transported northward from the subtropics into the Arctic, and is occurring more frequently in winter especially. When the right factors come together, low pressure systems in this flow can deepen rapidly as they move north, feeding on the contrast of the colder air coming off Siberia or mainland Alaska, while moving over the warmer ice-free waters of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
This particular storm brought wind gusts as high as 192 KPH (120 mph) over the higher elevations of the Anchorage hillsides, and at least 128 KPH (80 mph) here at the Chugach Front Research Centre. The following three have been somewhat weaker, but two have brought winds to the CFRC in excess of 112 KPH (70 mph), damaging some roofs in our neighbourhood, amongst other things.
This large dead cottonwood came down across the bridge of the N. Fork of Campbell Creek, along one of our primary running/skiing/hiking access routes with the strong 04 DEC storm. It took us a couple hours of chain-sawing to clear it.
Our latest storm, earlier today, brought more trees down throughout the area, including many large spruce like these, right behind our neighbourhood.
In addition, many roofs in the streets around the CFRC are missing shingles, and some fences have blown down.
It has also been a very difficult time for air travel during these storms. The Anchorage "Bowl", is prone to severe turbulence and low level wind shear because of it's unique geography, sheltered by the southwest-northeast oriented Chugach Mtns., but with two passes through this barrier on it's northern/southern ends, Knik Arm, and Turnagain Arm.
When strong winds are forced up and over the Chugach Mtns., and through the Knik and Turnagain Arms, as during these storms, they mix and mingle over the Anchorage Bowl and are quite gusty, erratic, and turbulent, especially along the Chugach Mtn. hillsides. With the most powerful of our storms, many flights to Anchorage couldn't land, and had to divert to Fairbanks, and many couldn't take off, and were canceled. There have even been a few pilot reports of turbulence unprecedented in their decades of experience, causing momentary losses of control of the aircraft.
We mentioned in our future climate projections for Anchorage, fourty years hence, in the year 2051, that there would be an increasing trend for these kind of storms here.
As with all global-warming related changes so far, this seems to be occurring faster and sooner than expected. Global annual CO2 emissions have actually increased over the past few years, and show no signs of leveling off. And the latest attempts for global agreements/treaties to limit them, have been complete failures, since now all the major governments of the industrialised nations are controlled by corporate interests, the so-called 1%. The Earth is now on course for a 2C average warming by the year 2050 (but which will be much greater here in the Arctic) as a result. We shudder to think what our storm seasons/patterns will be like then here at the Chugach Front. Cheers.
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