UN to help Ukraine assess consequences of Russian oil tanker accident in Black Sea

Author:
Iryna Perepechko
Date:

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) will provide technical assistance to Ukraine to assess the damage to the Black Sea ecosystem due to the accident of two Russian oil tankers in the Kerch Strait last December.

This was reported by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources.

They noted that this would be an important step in overcoming the consequences of the accident.

UNEP also emphasized that this work should be carried out in close cooperation with the Commission for the Protection of the Black Sea from Pollution, which has the relevant powers.

The UNEP Secretariat stands ready to work with the International Maritime Organization to strengthen international oversight of how seagoing vessels comply with environmental standards.

What preceded

An accident involving two Russian oil tankers occurred in the Kerch Strait on December 15. The leaked fuel oil reached the coast of the Odessa region on January 24.

After storms, fuel oil washed onto a sandbank in the Katranka recreational area near the Danube Biosphere Reserve and the Tuzli Estuaries National Nature Park.

In three days, they cleared an area 200 meters long and 30-70 centimeters wide — a total of up to 4 kg of fuel oil was collected. During this time, they explored about 40 kilometers of coastline.

However, there are no guarantees that fuel oil will not wash ashore again, because millions of small fractions are still drifting in the waters of the northwestern part of the Black Sea, noted Ivan Rusev, head of the scientific research department of the Tuzlivski Limany National Park in the Odessa region.

"Resources are needed to quickly identify, urgently collect, and destroy this threat, and the national park simply does not have them," he emphasized.

According to Rusev, a rare bird from the Red Book of Ukraine, the red-necked loon, contaminated with fuel oil, was also washed ashore. This is not the first case with birds. Earlier, a bird was found in fuel oil and sent for research to the Ukrainian Center for Marine Ecology to find out whether it was related to the fuel oil spill in the Black Sea after the accident with oil tankers. Rusev noted that the head of the center refused to take the bird for research, "for fear of bird flu or something else."

In early January this year, fuel oil was recorded off the coast of Feodosia, Alushta, and Sudak. These are three popular resorts in Crimea. Satellite images from January 4 probably show surface pollution in these areas. It is currently unclear whether there is fuel oil in the area of these resorts and at depth.

M100 fuel oil, which leaked from Russian tankers, freezes and sinks in winter. It will start to float in summer, when the temperature reaches +25 °C. The Black Sea warms up to this temperature in summer at a depth of 15-20 meters. The depth of the coastal area near Anapa and the southern part of the Kerch Peninsula does not reach 20 meters.

In January, satellite images indicated that fuel oil had likely stopped leaking from tankers.

On Sunday, January 5, the occupation governor of Sevastopol, Mykhailo Razvozhayev, said that about 18 tons of soil contaminated with fuel oil had been collected from the cityʼs beaches. Sevastopol is the westernmost part of the southern coast of Crimea.

Since the tanker accident, animal rights activists have recorded 58 cases of cetacean deaths. The first traces of the environmental disaster were also found on the coast in Georgia. A bird contaminated with fuel oil was found in the village of Ureki. However, this does not mean that the pollution has reached Georgia: some birds, even contaminated with fuel oil, are able to fly about 300 km from the accident site.

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