Pollution along the coastline and the death of over 150 birds on the Ukrainian side are the results of the disaster that occurred on Nov. 11 this year in the Strait of Kerch. This is the conclusion drawn by the European Commission, whose experts visited the Crimea on Nov. 18- 24. At the Ukrainian government’s request they examined the extent of environmental damage from the oil spill.
“Our cooperation with Ukraine is beneficial for both sides, because we have only one Black Sea, and each of us is responsible for it. The best experts from five countries — Italy, Portugal, Lithuania, France, and Denmark — were mobilized to the site of the ecological disaster. After the investigation it was ascertained that the Ukrainian government and special units reacted quickly to the shipping disaster in the Strait of Kerch and took every measure in order to protect the Black Sea from being polluted. Thanks to this, the extent of the pollution is less than was previously thought,” said Faouzi Bensarsa, a policy adviser at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for External Relations.
The Final Report, presented by the EU experts to the Ukrainian government on Friday, states there is no ecological threat in Kerch at the moment. This conclusion is based on the absence of black oil floating freely in the water (a large part of the clean-up operation has ended) and on the fact that the submerged sulfur does not pose an immediate threat to the environment. However, in spite of everything, the EC representatives have advised the Ukrainian state authorities that appropriate monitoring should be carried out in order to check if large amounts of oil have sunk to the sea-bed and whether the sunken ships loaded with sulfur should be raised.
“At the present temperature, the traces of heavy oil, black oil, and sulfur do not pose any risk, but once it warms up the situation can change for the worse, which will have a negative impact on tourism and fishing. Therefore, for the Crimea to be the same this spring as last year, the Directorate-General for External Relations is completing the preparation of a ramified assessment of the average— and long-tern consequences of the environmental damage,” said Alessandro Villa, International Relations Coordinator at the EU’s Directorate-General for External Relations, who is responsible for developing plans for managing critical situations.
The next step — more detailed research by leading EU experts into the ecological situation in Kerch — will be launched in January 2008 and will last four months.
