OIL or FISH?

Excerpt from the Concept of the Far Eastern Marine Shelf Hydrocarbon Resources Development

The Sea of Okhotsk is exclusively productive in terms of marine resources, which is a very important factor for local fishing industry.

Any oil and gas extraction projects, with concurrent transportation and construction developments will have an irrevocable negative consequences, unless necessary preventive measures are taken to protect the environment. Any oil and gas prospecting schedules ought to evaluate, in the first place, the possible impact on the ecosystems of the shelf.

Any such projects will undoubtedly take effect on the nvironment, this way or the other. Therefore our objective will be to evaluate not only the potential pluses of the projects, but the negative consequences. The gist of the problem is that potential oil and gas bearing areas coincide with the areas of active fisheries and habitats of the most valuable fish species and endangered sea mammals. Therefore, on the initial stage it would make the best sense to pinpoint the areas where such projects would be prohibited under all conditions (e.g.: natural reserves); areas, where the works would be permitted if only certain conditions were met (e.g.: seasonal works); and finally, the areas where the works would be possible without limitations.

During seismic surveys, explosions (drastic changes of pressure) create conditions for lethal impact on hydrobionts, especially on the early stages of their development. During drilling works, each stationary oil-rig on he shelf becomes a source of multi-component and continuous pollution, including: drilling solutions, ground waters, hard particles, drilling wastes with high content of oil products, barite, lubricants, heavy metals, radionuclides, emulsifiers, biocides, and other toxins. Average daily waste output of one stationary oil-rig off Sakhalin East Coast, based on materials of an oil field development project, may approximate 60,000 cubic meters of drilling solution, 15,000 cubic meters of hard particles, and 640 cubic meters of ground waters spreading for 3 to 12 kilometers around the drilling site.

The Far Eastern and North Pacific shelves, with their severe climatic conditions present the great risk of contingencies with the worst of consequences imaginable. We should pay our attention toward the latent anomalies existing in the region. For instance, in the locations of prospecting drills, changes in the marine ecosystem were observed resulting from mineral mixture released in the sea water.

Another group of adverse factors: alienation of fishing areas, laying of pipelines without flushing with the sea bottom, covering of the sealed wells openings with special armature (4.5 m high, 3-4 sq. m), dumping of drilling platform debris, anchors, wires, tractors, etc. on sea bottom.

This given concept considers allocation of protected zones where oil prospecting and drilling will be prohibited under all conditions, as well as zones requiring additional environmental studies and limitations, so as to avoid negative consequences. For the purposes of legal support, it will be necessary to alter the existing decision-making procedures for oil and gas prospecting on the marine shelf, which no longer comply with the environmental protection requirements.

At the same time, we should not exaggerate the risks of oil and gas prospecting projects. Thus, for instance, according to American scientists, oil drilling does not present too much danger. Risk of pollution resulting from an oil spill at a drilling site is a mere 2%, while that resulting from transportation reaches 50%. As confirmation to the above statement can serve the fact that out of 10,000 prospecting wells, drilled on the American shelf, none has been registered to produce an oil spill. We should also consider, that only 5% of oil film dissolve in the sea water, while the rest part evaporates, accumulates on the shore, or forms hydronous condensations. Kamchatka Fish and Game Review of Oil and Gas Extraction Concept

The Sea of Okhotsk corresponds to a fish product yield of 1.4-1.5 metric ton per square kilometer. In some areas this figure can reach 22 metric ton (Kamchatka Western Shelf), which is one of the highest in the world.

Kamchatka Western Shelf is a zone with a maximum stability of biological resource comparable with those of Peruvian and Arabian upwellings. Kamchatka Western Shelf give a stable output of high-quality exported delicacies – crab, shrimp, salmon, cod, pollock, herring, etc. Only in the regions in the Sea of Okhotsk, controlled by Kamchatka Fish and Game, in 1994, the raw resource value of the allocated quotas was estimated at 1,148,372,000 American dollars, less the added value of the finished product: smoked fish, canned stuff, salmon and pollock caviar, crab and filleted fish. In 1995 the overall landings of pollock and Pacific cod were estimated at over a million metric ton, of crab about 30,000 metric ton. Continued was fishing of herring with 12,306 metric ton landings in 1994 ă. Kamchatka Western Shelf is the concentration of the main flounder and halibut stocks, as well as the main pollock hatcheries.

The Gulf of Shelikhov is practically a «maternity ward» of the whole western Kamchatka population of crab, and of the most part of plaice and pollock.

In the Bering Sea the Olyutorskaya herring population is getting restored. Thus, in 1995, herring landings in the Olyutorskiy Gulf registered at 21,599.30 metric ton.

About 80% of Kamchatka economy operate in connection with fishing industry.

Given these facts, the authors of the oil and gas concept included in their development schedules the regions of the Olyutorskiy Gulf, Kamchatka Shelf of the Bering Sea, with no limitations as to the specially protected regions of the Yuzhno-Kamchatskiy Nature Reserve, Cape Utkholokskiy Nature Reserve, Cape Taigonos Reserve, Magadanskiy Reserve, the areas of the Kamchatka Western Shelf off-limit for fishing. It is a surprise, but in the prospective gas ad oil areas overlap the main Kamchatka king and blue crab, and pollock fishing areas in the Kamchatka Western Shelf, as well as the main migration routes and rearing areas of salmon, active all year round, not just a couple of months, as indicated by the authors.

Most of the rivers of the Kamchatka West Coast are spawning channels for the endangered silver salmon, listed in the Russian Red Book.

Any oil and gas extraction activities, with the accompanying complex of transportation, construction and other works, will undermine the unique fishing potentials existing in this region of the North Pacific, interfere with the economies throughout the Russian Far East, and will lead to economic downfall in the Russian economy as a whole. V.N. Burkanov. Chief Inspector, Kamchatka Board on Fish and Game (Kamchatrybvod) 20 years ago, it was found that drilling for oil and natural gas account for 1% of all spills in the world. As long as the oil extraction in the Sea of Okhotsk is targeted at millions upon millions of tons, the role of such activity in a possible ecological collapse in this region cannot be underestimated. According to the International Convention of 1973, oil spills in the sea cannot be over 60 liters per square mile.

The studies conducted at the drilling sites on the Sakhalin shelf uncovered that Station 2438 had heavily polluted surface and ground waters.

Sea water dissolves about 5% of oil products, or even more. Released in sea water, the oil undergoes physical, chemical, and biochemical changes. The volatile components, making from 20% to 50% of the crude oil, evaporate very intensively at the very beginning, than less so throughout the whole period of their presence in the sea water. Generally, the crude oil releases about 50% of its components into the atmosphere. Due to the evaporation, very active is self-removal of the light gasoline and kerosene fractions, diesel fuel and other low-molecular compounds. However, this cannot be considered as self-purification of the sea environment, as it was misinterpreted for, sometimes. M. M. Selifonov. Director, Kamchatka Science Research Institute on Fisheries and Oceanography (KamchatNIRO)

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