Within a week Greenpeace experts examined some 95 km of the
shoreline from Ilich village to Kuchugura at Sea of Azov and from
South part of Tuzla Spit to Panagia Cpae in Anapa region at Black
Sea. The most detailed survey was conducted at the distant beaches,
where the shore was covered in stones and reeds or the slopes were
too steep for the equipment to be brought there easily. The survey
results Greenpeace have summarized on a map that today will be
handed over to the crisis headquarters to be filed in operational
data records and used in operations, as officials claimed.
Greenpeace response team head Dmitry Artamonov comments on the
survey results: "So far, the shore is not totally cleaned from the
spilled oil. The cleaning crews are now removing oil from some 30%
of the polluted areas. The number of workers and equipment is
insufficient. Also the slime ponds for collected oil are full by
now. However the sea continues to bring more and more fuel oil to
the shores".
The full scope of cleanup works are now being conducted at the
shore villages territory and also at Tuzla and main part of Chushka
Spit. Crews have just started to clean up the southern part of
Chushka Spit, which is the most polluted one. As Greenpeace
examined, there has been no cleanup efforts in many of the
relatively distant areas, like the one from Ilich village to
Kuchugury village.
Some sea water samples were tested for toxicity by Greenpeace
experts. Testing was conducted using a special device "Biotox-10M"
that shows if the water is safe for living organisms and allows to
find traces of oil products in it.
"In the shipwreck both heavy-fuel oil and light fractions of oil
were spilled into the water. Those light ends are hard to notice
visually. That's why we used special equipment to assess pollution
in some areas. For example, we found no fuel oil near Peresyl
village at the Azov shore, whereas our device has shown the
seawater is toxic here, which means this area is polluted with
light diesel oil. The water samples taken near Volna village of the
Black Sea showed the same results," says Greenpeace expert Igor
Babanin.
The water toxicity test results helped Greenpeace to define in
what direction the oil slick is currently moving. In the next
several days the slick will move towards the South-East of the
Russian shore and soon is likely to reach Temryuk village. These
results confirmed the forecast made by the State Oceanographic
Institute basing on Rosgidromet reports' analysis.
Greenpeace response team arrived November 12th to the southern
Russia to estimate the scale of the environmental disaster in the
Kerch Strait after a fierce storm sank seven ships, including an
oil tanker. There are now 11 Greenpeace volunteers on the spot
helping to clean-up the coastline, monitoring the polluted areas,
reporting about new polluted spots.