We keep underestimating the problem with the oil spill
We keep underestimating the problem with the oil spill
Russians are ditching their summer holiday plans at popular Black Sea destinations due to the recent oil spill. Local volunteers, meanwhile, have complained that the government is interfering with cleanup efforts.
It's not about reputation as the article emphasises. It's about environmental change (due to disaster) and a future change of the way anyone around lives. This holds both for people and wildlife. What is reported now in Asana, will arrive within a year along the whole coastline.
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.
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.
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.
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.