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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. In 1994, the republic of Komi, where Usinsk lies 60 kilometers (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 40 kilometers (25 miles) of two local rivers, killing thousands of fish. In villages most affected, respiratory diseases rose by some 28 percent in the year following 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 insoil 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." Valery Bratenkov works as a foreman at oil fields outside Usinsk. After hours, he is with a local environmental group. 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." 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 leaves, there will be only poisoned terrain left in its wake. "Fishing, hunting -- it's all gone," Bratenkov said.
[Associated
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