Notes At The Front

This winter, two Russian oil tankers broke up during stormy weather in the Strait of Kerch, polluting large swaths of the Black Sea and its coastline with thousands of tons of toxic fuel oil. It’s a story we’ve heard before – the tankers were over 50 years old and still in use despite having been built to last just 25 years. Furthermore, they were originally intended for use mostly for inland bodies of water, so not built to withstand winter sea storms. In 2007, ships of the same Volgoneft design split in half in roughly the same area, spilling about 4,000 tons of fuel oil. 

Head of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Water Problems Institute, Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, called this most recent spill “the worst environmental catastrophe in Russia since early in the twenty-first century.” 

As is unfortunately common in such situations, Russian authorities did not react to the spill for over a week, forcing volunteers to take the initiative by gathering the clumping fuel oil from the shore and attempting to rescue petroleum-coated seabirds. (Most affected seabirds died from ingesting toxins, even if their feathers are cleaned). Eventually, local authorities started sending organized groups of volunteers to join in the cleanup efforts, another misguided step that led many people to get sick and led one minor, 17-year-old Alexander Komin, to die on the beach after his college promised to waive his examinations if he participated. His mother told independent media outlets that her family’s story is banned by state TV stations, while investigators have refused to release his cause of death for several weeks.