Instead of filling local budgets with solid revenues, the rich oil and gas deposits in southern Chernihiv oblast are only causing problems to the region’s residents. People are in poor health and keep dying of cancer and diseases of the nervous and endocrine systems. Potable water disappears from springs and water supply lines, ponds go dry. Villagers and even local authorities are putting the blame on mining companies, but the latter are denying these accusations. What can put an end to this “war” is only an independent ecological expert examination which nobody has so far resolved to make. The never-ending flow of words, “buck-passing,” and the bureaucratized procedure of expert examination disguise the ugly face of a common, albeit of a post-Soviet style, criminal indifference to both the fellow countrymen and the environment. It is just one more local manifestation of a consumerist attitude to the homeland, about which The Day has written more than once: first you grab and squeeze out as much as possible and then – suitcase, airport, London.
Experts estimate there are 428 deposits of various minerals in the Chernihiv region, including 194 that can be exploited in the future. The region’s mineral and raw-material potential consist 66.7 percent of fuel-and-energy minerals, such as oil, natural gas, and peat. In particular, oil is represented by 21 deposits which contain the extractable balance reserves of 12.7 million tons, almost 9.5 percent of Ukraine’s total reserves. The extractable reserves of free gas are 10.5 billion cubic meters in 11 deposits, which is one percent of the total gas reserves in Ukraine.
The largest deposits of hydrocarbons are in the areas of Hnidyntsi, Leliakivka, and Talalaivka. They form the basis of the region’s oil and gas industry (over 50 percent of the reserves and 80 percent of the production). As is known, all these deposits of hydrocarbons are in the south of Chernihiv oblast, with commercial extraction going on in the five main oil- and gas-bearing districts of Ichnia, Pryluky, Varva, Sribne, and Talalaivka.
WITHOUT GAS AND HIGH-QUALITY WATER, BUT WITH A BUDGET DEFICIT AND AN INCREASING SICKNESS RATE
Ecosystem disruption has been the talk of the town in Varva in the past few years. For example, according to Varva District Council Chairman Volodymyr Petrenko, near Hnidyntsi, where a gas-processing plant has been in operation since 1987, people cannot even get their laundry dried well – it just goes black.
There are 89 boreholes in the remote – and government-subsidized – Talalaivka district. It has in fact no high-quality potable water, and village wells remain in a deplorable condition. The sickness rate of Talalaivka district residents has gone up by 11.6 percent in the past few years. When you approach the main oil and gas fields, you can notice that local roads, battered by heavy-duty vehicles of the extracting companies, have not been repaired for 20 years or so. Even the villages, near which hydrocarbons have been extracted for dozens of years, are not being supplied with gas. Extraction is being carried out here by Ukrnafta registered in Pryluky. Accordingly, instead of filling the Talalaivka budget, revenues go to Pryluky, leaving the Talalaivka district with a deficit budget.
In the Pryluky district, the situation does not differ much from the abovementioned one except perhaps for the fact that it is OK with assessments to budget. According to Antonina Stukalova, First Deputy Chairperson of the Pryluky District Administration, hydrocarbons are being extracted in the district on a territory administered by 12 village councils. This has created a difficult environmental situation. In particular, Stukalova focuses on the problem of supplying high-quality water to the populace. “Wherever hydrocarbons are being actively extracted, there is a problem of water level reduction in wells,” she says. “It is typical of the majority of territorial communes. In some populated areas, ponds went dry long ago.”
But problems are not confined to this only: the adoption of a new Tax Code has created the acute problem of budget formation in these territorial communes because the extracting companies recently began to pay taxes at the place of their registration. This deprived most of the territorial communes of fair compensation. They have no money even to repair the roads battered by the heavy-duty vehicles of oil and gas companies for dozens of years.
There really are quite serious grounds for being worried. According to Volodymyr Pulin, Deputy Chief of the Oblast Administration’s Public Health Department, disease incidence has increased by two percent in the oblast over the past few years. This especially applies to the five Chernihiv oblast districts, where hydrocarbons are being actively extracted. “We can see a slight growth of the sickness rate in all the abovementioned districts,” the oblast official says. “In particular, this concerns diseases of the nervous and endocrine systems. Cancer-related diseases are also on the rise.” Yet Pulin is not exactly rushing to blame the extracting companies for human illnesses. Valerii Zub, Chairman of the Chernihiv Oblast Council’s Commission for Health Care and Protection of the Populace from the Consequences of the Chornobyl Power Plant Accident, adds: “It usually takes dozens of years for a disease to come up. For example, only now have we begun to see a growth of cancer-related diseases in the areas where chemical fertilizers were used. We will not see today any harmful effect of the extraction of hydrocarbons on people’s health, but it is doubtless that there will be an effect of this kind. For the elements that are being extracted clearly have some carcinogenic properties.”
PERIODIC ACCIDENTS AND ILLEGAL EXTRACTION
What also adds fuel to the fire is that there are periodic oil product pipeline accidents. According to Nina Didusenko, chief expert at the Integrated Management of Nature Conservation Department of the State Environmental Protection Directorate, the 400-km-long oil and oil product pipelines that run through Chernihiv oblast have to pass 48 times over water bodies, highways, and railroads. “Due to their poor condition, these pipelines get depressurized and disrupted, which makes oil spill into the ground,” the official says. “This results in the pollution of surface and ground waters.” The main problem of the pipeline transport is wear and tear of the basic equipment. For instance, in the words of Didusenko, most of the latter have an above-standard service life: 248.5 km of the oil pipelines – the largest part of them – have been in operation for more than 30 years.
It is obvious now that both sides – the authorities and the extracting companies – are unanimous in one thing: the problem of illegal extraction needs to be solved as soon as possible. “The problem arose this year,” Stukalova says. “We turned to the ecological inspection which immediately reacted. We also turned to the prosecution service, where we were told that there were no grounds for accusations because the polluted area had not yet been examined. We turned to the local chief of police, too.”
Mykola Makarov, state inspector at the Oblast Ecological Inspectorate, confirms the fact of illegal extraction by the company Resource Agro located on the land under jurisdiction of the Malkiv village company. In his words, prospect holes were dug on more than 10 hectares of land, which proved that hydrocarbons were extracted illegally on this territory. “Besides, it is allowed to drill 20 meters down,” Makarov notes. “If they use substandard drilling equipment and if oil products penetrate into the second or third division, this may cause a disaster. We sent letters on this matter to the Ministry of the Interior, but nobody has been brought at least to administrative justice.”
Natalia Halaburna, environmental engineer at the Pryluky Drilling Operations Department of Ukrnafta Ltd., has assured us that the enterprise uses waterproofing to protect groundwater. “As for water level reduction, this should not be directly linked to our enterprise’s operation,” the environmental engineer comments. “For example, we have no facilities in Ichnia, but local people are also talking about a reduced level of groundwater. The probes of our installations can reach the depth of 2,000 to 5,000 meters.”
It is quite possible to find the factors that cause pollution of the environment and the growth of morbidity among the local population. However, no research has ever been done into the effect that the activities of hydrocarbon-extracting and processing companies have on human health and groundwater level in Chernihiv oblast. Besides, experts are convinced that every town and village should be examined. But this requires considerable funds, which, unfortunately, the budget does not have. Asked by The Day about the possibility of an expert examination, Svitlana Tsakun, chief of the ecological inspection sector of the State Directorate for the Environment and Natural Resources in Chernihiv Oblast, said: “We conduct ecological expert examinations, but it is not an easy procedure. To do this, we must receive a direct request from the examination customer. He must furnish us with the necessary project documentation. The project is drawn up by a specialized institute which assesses the [ecological] impact, and we carry out an examination. Besides, the documents being submitted for a state ecological expert examination should be coordinated with the interested bodies.” There seem to be no “interested bodies…”
“THE OBLAST COUNCIL’S STANDING COMMISSIONS APPROVED THE NECESSARY RECOMMENDATIONS”
Arsen DIDUR, Chairman, Standing Commission on the Agro-Industrial Complex, Land Relations, Ecology and Natural Resources; Chernihiv Oblast Council:
“As far as this problem is concerned, two standing commissions of the Oblast Council – one on the agro-industrial complex, land relations, ecology and natural resources and the other on health care and protection of the populace from the consequences of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant disaster – have held a joint away session in Pryluky. The councilors thoroughly looked into the ecological situation in the Chernihiv region’s oil-producing districts and its impact on the local population’s health. The standing commissions approved the necessary recommendations. In particular, if local government bodies and district state administrations are going to conclude or extend agreements on leasing land to oil-producing businesses, they must see to it that the land user take part in the financial support of the programs of economic and social development. The regional main directorate of the State Committee for Land Resources and the regional environmental inspectorate were advised to strengthen control over the protection and utilization of land by the owners and users of lands and other economic entities in order to avoid the pollution and damage of lands and take timely and adequate land protection measures. It was also recommended to take measures to stop unauthorized use of water resources and prevent the drilling of artesian wells without the documentation that allows doing this work. District state administrations and local government bodies were instructed to organize the effective performance of purification systems, bring the condition of landfills and refuse dumps into line with the current ecological demands, and mothball the degraded, low-productive and man-polluted lands by way of forestation. Besides, the commissions advised taking actions to expand water-supply networks in the populated areas, organize an ecological expert examination of the oil-bearing areas and find out the factors that can affect pubic health, and look into the problem of improving the logistical basis of district hospitals, i.e., updating medical equipment, etc.”
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A lot of words, no end to recommendations… But, as a result, battered roads, a polluted environment, and a sick society.
