May 26th 2003 · Prague Watchdog / Timur Aliyev
 
Polluted undergro und water could cause environmental catastrophe in Caucasus

Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus – A massive amount of underground oil could soon begin escaping and find its way into the Sunzha River, then the Terek River, and on to the Caspian Sea, stated Sharpudi Astamirov, director of the Ecological Section of the Natural Resources Department of Chechnya. “As of today, this entire subterranean oil supply consists of 1.5 to 2 million tons,” said Astamirov.

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen---for when this oil rises to the surface, it will begin evaporating and the entire area will be in danger of fires breaking out; and there will be no chance of stopping or reversing it,” he explained.

Fatima Kovrayeva, chairwoman of EKOFront, an environmental organization, believes the prime reason for this situation has been the output of waste material from industrial processing of oil. “For the past one hundred years, no technology was available for disposal of this waste material, and so it was dumped into rivers and onto the land.”

She also thinks that during the past 7-8 years, when do-it-yourself mining and processing of oil became widespread in Chechnya, the danger of environmental pollution arose. “The methods people used in their "mini-refineries" did not provide for any waste disposal whatsoever.”

According to reports from the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, since 1994 more than 20,000 tons of oil has been dumped into the waters and soil of the Chechen Republic.

Astamirov firmly believes that because the federal center is short of funds, cleaning up the underground water and eliminating this environmental danger is next to impossible at the present time.