Amid ongoing Black Sea oil spill, locals lead cleanup effort

Times of Oman

27-01-2025

Anapa: A wave of cancellations is sweeping through spas and children's camps in Anapa, a Russian town on the Black Sea. As the pollution from a huge December 2024 oil spill washes onto local beaches, many Russians are abandoning their holiday plans in the southern Krasnodar region.
According to the Telegram channel Kub Mash, "parents don't want to send their children to the hazardous coastline." It also reported that companies that had issued travel vouchers to employees as bonuses were now demanding refunds.
Speaking to the Russian paper Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the head of Russia's State Duma Committee on Family Affairs, Nina Ostanina, said bookings at Anapa's children's recreation and health retreats had plummeted by more than 27% in January and 40% for the summer.
The oil spill began on December 15 when a storm swamped two aging Russian tankers traveling through the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia from the Crimean Peninsula. One ship sank and the other was damaged when it ran aground.
Ongoing environmental disaster
More than a month later, fuel oil continues to leak into the sea from the sunken tanker. Russian authorities have reported that they haven't been able to weld the damaged part of the ship closed, because the hole was too close to the oil storage tankers.
According to official reports, up to 5,000 of the 9,200 tons of mazut, a heavy, low-quality oil product, being transported by the tankers may have already leaked into the sea.
The mazut has been settling on the seabed and washing ashore, contaminating at least 50 kilometres (31 miles) of coastline, mostly around Anapa.
While Russia's Emergencies Ministry has claimed there is no effective method to clean up this type of oil, environmental experts have said appropriate methods have been available since 2002, when the Prestige tanker carrying similar heavy fuel oil sank off the Spanish coast, polluting some 2,000 kilometers of coastline.
Russian officials are warning of further problems in the summer, when rising temperatures cause the oil to dissolve and wash ashore in larger amounts.
Severe consequences for wildlife, people
Eugene Simonov, of the environmental protection group Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group, told DW it could take a decade for local ecosystems to recover. "This oil spill could have disastrous consequences for some species," he said.
Environmental organization Greenpeace has reported the deaths of 32 dolphins and 1,355 birds as of early January. Anna Jerzak, an expert with the organization for Central and Eastern Europe, told DW that high concentrations of hydrocarbons had a toxic effect on fish, disrupting food chains and causing populations to decline.
"In the long term, oil products poison seaweeds, which destroys the habitats of a number of organisms," she said.
Looking to the upcoming summer, Simonov said the heavy fuel also posed health risks to swimmers. "People may experience a bad smell," he said. "For many, it will worsen existing respiratory issues, and all of this can have carcinogenic effects."
Jerzak warned that toxic fumes, allergic reactions and skin inflammation were also likely.
Volunteers step in despite government inaction
Some 10,000 volunteers are helping with the spontaneous cleanup effort, said ecologist Evgeny Vitishko, adding that some 2,500 birds have been rescued so far.
"That's about half the birds affected by the oil spill, which is higher than the global average. Usually, only about 10-12% are rescued," said Vitishko, adding that he was lobbying for a bird rehabilitation center where the rescued wildlife could be kept for three to six months.
"We've only got a month left before there are no more birds left to save," he said.
One helper explained that the volunteer network had initially been funded by donations. In time, volunteers began asking donors to order the necessary supplies and gear online and have it shipped directly to the volunteer center.
All volunteers receive free lodging and provisions from local hotels, whose own survival depends on the upcoming summer season.
Environmental authorities call for stricter monitoring of cleanup effort
Initially, authorities had provided volunteers with protective suits from China, as DW learned, and the distribution of special gear was slow at best.
But even if these issues have since been resolved, many volunteers are under the impression that they, not the state, are the ones doing most of the cleanup work. They complain that government representatives are only interfering with their efforts.
In a ministerial meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin had apparently called upon those in office to engage more actively in cleanup duties. When employees of Russian Environment Ministry visited Anapa in early January, they caused a scandal when they released some 160 rescued birds without consulting local volunteers in advance.
"They did it as a PR stunt," one helper told DW. The incident took a tragic turn, when nearly all the birds that had been released were found dead along the coast the following day. Experts explained that the oil had damaged the natural insulation lining in the birds' feathers, which hadn't had the chance to recover in such a short period.
Following the event, the volunteer center installed a representative responsible for liaising with authorities and the media. But helpers said the representative is actually responsible for monitoring the content of their internal group chats.
One volunteer said there had initially been an open atmosphere at the center. "I was amazed at how friendly people were to each other. Some did the heavy lifting, other washed birds, and still other distributed protective gear," he said. "It felt great to be a part of it."
But once authorities began pressuring the volunteer center, he starting doubting the official statistics and work practices. Instead, the helper suspects local authorities are trying to cover up numbers and activities.
"Despite the free food and lodging, I barely have any savings left over," he said. But he still wanted to stay, if only for the sense of contributing to something important.