How can Ukraine resist the storm?

(Conclusion. For Part One, see previous issue)

POLITICS AND COMPETENCE

Yurii SHCHERBAK: Political appointees and their incompetence constitute a very difficult problem; they are a threat to society. Such ministers can only give interviews against the background of a disaster broadcast on television screens. People have correctly understood this cause-and-effect relationship and are asking, “Why is it that where there is a minister, there is a disaster?” Furthermore, such individuals are absolutely incapable of realizing that the rescue measures that are undertaken in the aftermath of a catastrophe are not systematic but haphazard, sporadic, and thus ineffective.

Regrettably, some representatives of Russia consider it acceptable to adopt an arrogant tone with Ukraine — and Europe — and this has added dark overtones. We are not seeing good will for cooperation and this is an impediment. Russia plans to build several seaports in the Caucasus-Kerch region. We, in contrast, have canceled our construction projects at Donuzlav and Lake Tobechyk. Russia wants to build a parallel Kerch-Yenikal canal for ships to pass through the Strait of Kerch. As a result, Russia will take over all the transportation and freight transport on the Black Sea, and we are losing all prospects for developing our own transportation system in this important region.

I think that we should have used North American experience to create legal and organizational mechanisms to protect bodies of water, as was the case with the Great Lakes. There is a huge legal mechanism and a large organizational structure of public control, and all this is very effective. There is a joint Canadian- US emergency management system. We must have similar mechanisms to protect the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. We shouldn’t invent the wheel in the Crimea but borrow from US, Canadian, French, and German experience, and the experience of other European countries.

Viktor MUSIIANENKO: I was appointed head of the Water Inspectorate of the Crimea in 1984. In 1986, the More factory in Feodosia dumped over 120 tons of burner oil into the Black Sea. The currents carried it along the coast, all the way to Foros. At the time we had a huge amount of oil spill equipment, including oil-spill boats. We flew helicopters that guided the boats to oil spills. This time 15 percent of the fuel oil sank to the bottom of the sea, but the currents are carrying it along the Crimean coast, so eventually the oil will surface in Yalta and other resorts. The ship Vera Voloshina, which broke in half, ran aground not far from Sudak. It has more than 20 tons of fuel oil on board. This is thin oil and if it spills, there will be an altogether different pollution pattern. I think the consequences will be very complicated.

Second, the problem of sulphur pollution has existed there for a long time. The thing is that ship owners want to save money and have their vessels stay out of port, so as not to pay fees. As a result, sulphur is reloaded in mid-sea and the winds carry tons of it out to sea.

The sea is a fragile structure. After the bottom of the Sea of Azov was dragged, a local species of fish known as the bullhead disappeared. I don’t understand the role of the state. I was the first to levy fines on the military. I was the first to introduce fines for polluting. At the time the procedures were as follows: 70 percent went to local, 30 to oblast, and only 10 percent to the central budget. Today the local authorities are left with a mere 10 percent. Now show me a mayor who will sacrifice his businesses so that the money can be divided in Kyiv. Second, if this money has been taken, there must be some upgrading where this money was collected, but the money is being spent without taking into account what the local authorities have to say on the matter, and regardless of local pollution indices.

I must say that the structure of our Ministry of the Environment is not adequate to our needs. We used to have two inspectorates in charge of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Then suddenly the ministry reorganized them into one, based in Yalta and lacking experts and seaports, and gave it a 100-meter “coordination zone.” Note that it was set up in Yalta, not in Kerch or Sevastopil.

I am familiar with Sweden’s experience. There, a municipal official is responsible exclusively for children’s environmental education. There are officially enacted procedures whereby every business annually submits an ecological progress report. For public hearings on each report three types of organizations provide data: an environmental monitoring authority, the business in question, and nonprofit watchdog organizations. Everything is carefully analyzed. If a business does not abide by ecological requirements, the media disseminates these findings and no one will buy its products. In Ukraine, it is often standing practice to keep the names of such companies away from the public eye, even when exposing cases of environmental violations and the output of polluted products — allegedly to spare them bad publicity, although this is precisely what would best serve the public interest.

The way our Ministry of Emergency Situations operates indicates that its officials are not working to avert emergencies. Bird flu, dying fish, fires — all it does is send rescue teams in the aftermath of a disaster. No steps are being taken to prevent them. In fact, the bigger the catastrophe, the more these people benefit in terms of funds, stars, medals, premiums, and promotions. The forest fire at the nature preserve of Yalta was controlled in the first half of the day, and everybody left to rest, but then it sprang to life with new force. Therefore, in my opinion, there should be a delimitation of emergency management and prevention functions. Tell me, does the ministry have any ornithologists, botanists, zoologists, or other experts? It has none. Then how does this ministry prevent such disasters? This is nonsense. We must recognize that Ukraine does not have a system aimed at preventing catastrophes or combating their consequences.

Viacheslav DOLYNSKY: The first thing the Ministry of the Environment should have done was to adopt a set of monitoring procedures to determine sample-taking sites and create a monitoring network involving aerial surveillance. Ministry officials had to supervise every search and rescue operation and keep constant track of pollutants collected by these teams. The law states that the ministry is tasked with keeping the public constantly informed about such disasters and rescue operations, also about exactly how safe this or that area is. In the present case the sources of pollution were specific ships, so Ukraine must sue the ship owners. I can’t say that the ministry has effectively coped with these tasks. At the same time, it is obvious that Ukraine is still unprepared to cope with such spills on the high seas because it does not have the necessary equipment. In addition, the rescue operation to prevent pollution of the coast was done on a primitive level, using shovels and bulldozers. Here, too, we have no adequate technologies to cope with tasks of such a caliber.

Leonid YAREMENKO: In 1999 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ratified the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. Among other things, this instrument provides for access to data relating to genetically modified organisms, the detection of pollutants, upgrading of information about polluting companies, and participation in the prevention of emergencies. Therefore, we have every right to say that we have grounds to create a mechanism aimed at keeping the public informed — and this concerns the Ministry of the Environment and government bodies, all users of natural resources, all enterprises, and other structures. Estonia, for example, has a state ecological data center that disseminates information on the Internet about the work of every government official with regard to any given problem. Every citizen can access the Internet, monitor it, and submit proposals.

Larysa IVSHYNA: So we are faced with a task on the 21st-century level; we must create a digital society and turn our current backwardness into achievements. Herein lies the role of the public; its control must make the unprofessional impossible because the logic of unprofessional behavior is never to hire professionals so that they won’t expose their employers’ incompetence; so that people will not know that these are chancy people. That is why there is a great risk that such non-professionals will lead our country to even worse emergencies.

Leonid YAROSHENKO: Under conditions of public control, nonprofessionals will be scared to work because they will be instantly exposed and shown up for who they really are.

Vasyl SHEVCHUK: We have no institution of “state memory”; just as we have no continuity in the performance of our governments. Every government starts by discarding everything that was done by its predecessor and starts from scratch. Ukraine has some 50 bilateral agreements with other countries, which were concluded by previous governments, but the present one isn’t using them. This leads to complications. I would suggest the creation of a Council of Ministers for the Protection of the Environment, which would be made up of members of all the previous governments. After all, these people have a great deal of experience and expertise, so not using them would mean losing a lot.

THE KERCH DISASTER COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED

The few days that have passed since the end of our roundtable demonstrate the validity of forecasts made by The Day’s experts. Even before the publication of the first part of the roundtable, when Vasyl Shevchuk declared that this catastrophe could cost about one billion dollars, we heard Oleksii Uhriumov, the acting public prosecutor of the Crimea, addressing a press conference in Symferopil. He said that “the preliminary estimates of damage caused by the fuel oil spill in the Strait of Kerch, following the wreck of the Russian tanker Volganeft-139, amount to 889 million dollars. This is a preliminary estimate based on available data arithmetically assessed, which was received from Russia’s prosecutor’s office. I don’t think these figures will decrease. The damage that has been done is mind-boggling and the assessment continues.”

Therefore, when all the consequences of this catastrophe are finally revealed, the amount of damages will obviously be higher than Shevchuk’s predicted one billion dollars, a sum that sounded incredibly large even then. Uhriumov said, however, that because of geographical and boundary problems, it is unclear which side, Russia or Ukraine, has suffered all this damage. This issue will be resolved by a joint Russia-Ukraine commission: “There are international instruments, including a convention concerning pollution of the Black Sea; another one establishes pollution- caused compensation for damages. The latter reads that, in case of damages sustained by both parties, one of the parties assumes the liabilities brought by the guilty party.”

At the same time, we are aware of the effects of the absence of methods for calculating such damages. Thus, the Ukrainian side believes that both the short-term consequences (the seabird death toll of 35,000, which may well exceed 45,000 to 50,000, according to the latest estimates; the loss of dozens or hundreds of tons of commercial fish species, dolphins, and other marine creatures; oil and sulphur pollution) and long-term consequences, including the loss of the recreational importance of the coastal areas, irreversible changes to the marine ecosystem, and effects on living water resources. Official Kyiv, however, still has not named the total sum of damages it is claiming from the guilty party. It is understandable that Ukraine is counting on the damages resulting from the pollution of the Strait of Kerch by crude oil and sulphur and long-term negative consequences. News agencies, meanwhile, are reporting that Russia’s Southern Transportation Prosecutor’s Office has estimated the damages resulting from the emergency in the Strait of Kerch at 30 billion rubles (roughly one billion dollars) and launched five criminal cases. Nikolai Bezirgani, head of Rosrybolovstvo’s Azov-Chernomorskoe territorial administration, said the damages amount to 304 billion.

Meanwhile, we continue to receive fresh data on the pollution. We know that the pollution is affecting not only the Black Sea, where the currents are revolving counter- clockwise and continuing along the Crimean coast from Kerch to Foros, but also the Sea of Azov, where the oil has drifted in with the current from the Black Sea. Ecologists say that some 64 km of the Azov coast, all the way from Leninsky raion in the Crimea, are covered with oily seaweed. Journalists were informed about this by the Chief Directorate of the Crimean Ministry of Emergency Situations: “The pollution extends all the way along the coast, from the village of Kamianske in the direction of the village of Striletske (Kherson oblast).”

On Nov. 28, approximately 100 members of the environment ministry rescue team, officials from the Leninske raion state administration, and employees of regional businesses took part in an operation to gather oil-soaked seaweed. Ministry officials say that more than 17 km of the coast have been cleared. Volodymyr Ivanov, deputy head of the Crimea’s Chief Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, says that a swathe of seaweed measuring between 50 cm and 2 meters wide covers the banks of Arabatska Strilka: “People are collecting this seaweed, using mostly garden rakes and shovels, packing it in sacks, and loading it on tractor- driven trailers that deliver the loads to recycling plants.” The good news is that so far no oil has been spotted on the surface of the sea and no more dead birds or fish have been found — so far. Ada Alekseieva, head of the resort and tourism department at the Leninske district state administration, said that all this oil-covered seaweed has to be collected before it starts decomposing because of precipitation and sunlight and starts drifting back into the sea or the sand: “We also know that if we leave it all here, our media will be talking about this in March, warning people against spending their summer vacations here.” The latest bulletin from the Ministry of Emergency Situations reads that a special joint rescue team of 171 volunteers working with 19 pieces of equipment has collected some 4,500 tons of this polluted material on the Arbatska Strilka, Tuzla Island, and nearly 2,300 tons have already been loaded and sent off for recycling.

Meanwhile, the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine in the Crimea is contradicting statements by ecologists, who claim that the oil has spread along the southern Crimean coast — allegedly captured by satellite photos. The emergency ministry’s press service issued a statement to the effect that the Crimean rescue teams used Google Earth and based their statements on this Internet data. The ministry believes that these satellite photos were taken sometime in March-April 2007: “In other words, they by no means show any of the current sites. Careful examinations have revealed that a number of facilities built on the peninsula within the past eight months are missing in these photos; instead, you can see empty construction sites (including a number of supermarkets that were opened in the last three to five months); there are also a number of other indications that can be detected even by nonprofessionals.” The ministry’s statement adds that the dark spots along the coast, which ecologists claim are oil stains, are actually “spring flood waters from mountain rivers, which are characteristic of the Crimea and all the countries of the Black Sea basin.” The emergency ministry’s Crimean directorate stresses that “the public has always been provided with unbiased and timely information, and such information will continue to be supplied in regard to all emergency situations and their consequences... As of Nov. 28 no oil pollution has been recorded in the area of water of the Southern Coast of the Crimea...”

This opinion is shared by Oleh Rusensky, chairman of the Crimean Parliamentary Commission on Agriculture, Land, Ecology, and Resorts. He told journalists: “I call into question what you are seeing and hearing on your television screens, what you are reading in newspapers about an oil stain spreading toward our resorts; that the sea near the Crimean resorts has been subjected to a great deal of ecological strain...I am not sure I can trust this...I think that people who know all about this must start working here; this is science; this involves special government agencies — only then can we reach certain conclusions.”

According to Rusensky, the oil stains that are visible on the satellite photos “could just be the relief of the Black sea bottom.” He added that after receiving ecological findings, the Crimea will certainly sue the owners of the ships that inflicted all this damage on the environments of Ukraine, Russia, and the Crimea. He said that he fears there will be attempts to torpedo the 2008 holiday season in the Crimea because the Russian media will definitely be writing about the pollution and deliberately overstating the facts, although, in his opinion, it is too early to reach any conclusions.

In an interview with the BBC, Volodymyr Bezkorovainy, the former commander of Ukraine’s navy, said: “For more than a hundred years every navy has had a well-practiced drill known as storm alert. Warnings are sent to local, state, and other authorities; all efforts are concentrated on preventing tragic events. What happened [in the Strait of Kerch] is the result of irresponsibility on the part of a large number of officials, ranging from the official in charge of the seaport and those who are in charge of weather forecasts to officials who are responsible for the harbor facilities at the Ministry of Transport of Ukraine. There is no other way to describe the situation, because shipwrecks on such a scale can only mean that each official went about his duties the other way around. I think that the reason is the incompetence of all these officials. I am not accusing the Ukrainian government; I am accusing the system of governance because there are problems here, including ones on the Russian side. The system of responsibility for navigational-hydrographic support in Ukraine is in shambles simply because there are two structures present on the same territory: Ukraine’s hydrography and Russia’s hydrography. So it is difficult to figure out which of them is responsible for what. What we have on our hands is a breach of international accords that envisage responsibility for navigational, hydrographic, meteorological, and other kinds of support for ships on the high seas. Of course, this factor played a role in this situation. The Hydrographic Directorate of Russia’s Ministry of Defense controls 22 important navigational facilities that were torn away from the national system.”

Therefore, if all these facilities functioned normally, if Ukraine and Russia resolved all their navigation control issues in the Strait of Kerch in a timely fashion, this disaster would probably never have happened; there would not be such great damage to the environment; there would not be so many deaths.

Meanwhile, the situation in the strait remains complicated. The weather is still very bad; there are almost daily storm warnings, with strong southern winds, up to 12 meters/second and waves reaching a height of 4 meters. In the area where the prow of the Russian tanker Volganeft-139 is located work is still underway to lift it, pump out the remaining fuel oil, and transport it to Port Kavkaz (Russian Federation, Chushka Spit). Ukraine’s Ministry of the Environment has announced that the Strait of Kerch has been monitored with special equipment in the areas where the Russian ships went down, and no oil pollution has been found. However, because of the high level of sea traffic in this strait and the incomplete rescue work, the risk of new disasters and further damage to the environment cannot be ruled out.

TWELVE RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS

1. Ukraine’s current administration system does not meet 21st-century requirements. There is a problem with officials’ professional qualifications, many of whom are unprofessional and thus ineffective in their respective fields of endeavor. Elsewhere in the world this is compensated for by a system of reliable professionals, like secretaries of state, who shoulder the whole burden of professional decision making and maintain ministerial continuity. Such a system once existed in Ukraine, but it was dismantled. Life demands that it be restored in a modern way, with new tasks.

2. In order to upgrade measures to manage emergency situations and prevent disasters, it is necessary to establish a coordinating authority under the aegis of the National Security and Defense Council (RNBU), namely a National Emergency Management Agency, which would coordinate the efforts of all emergency management agencies and develop a national strategy to combat and prevent all emergencies. This agency should have a top-notch experts and disaster specialists, who would forecast disasters and emergency situations.

3. All government agencies and ministries should have teams of independent — not appointed — experts capable of determining problems and guidelines.

4. The role being played by the Ministry of the Environment does not answer the principle laid down in the 1991 law on the protection of the environment. This ministry has become a business entity specializing in the issuance of licenses, rather than a controlling and coordinating authority engaged in such a complicated and multifaceted sphere as environmental protection. The status of this ministry should be raised. The government, president, and parliament should revise their attitude to this ministry. The environment cannot be used as small change in political bargaining; this ministry must become a leading component of our cabinet; in terms of environmental inspection, it should be made part of our law enforcement agencies.

5. It is necessary to build a system of contemporary international agreements. Earlier agreements are Soviet in spirit and general and content-free in style. Our international lawyers are poorly trained. The world practice of concluding international agreements should be studied on a broader scope; we should adopt the world practice of direct agreements modeled on the best international instruments.

6. We must condemn the Ukrainian government’s practice of rejecting assistance from international organizations; we must recognize this as unacceptable in Ukraine. Nothing in the sphere of environmental protection must remain hidden from the Ukrainian and international public.

7. Experts recommend that in order to completely eradicate the negative consequences of the disaster, a competent international commission should be established. After studying the condition of the Sea of Azov and Black Sea region, such a commission would draft recommendations aimed at improving the local ecological situation, along with recommendations to enlist the help of international organizations to restore the situation.

8. Article 7, which spells out protection of the environment, should be strictly observed, and ecology should be reintroduced as a compulsory subject in the curriculum of every institution of higher learning in Ukraine; the geography entrance exam should be replaced by one in ecology in every higher school.

9. The role of civic organizations must be strengthened because their members are people who really care about their state, land, and nature. A noospheric society should be formed with the aid of these organizations. We should remember that the UN’s millennium declaration reads that respect for nature is one of the fundamental human values. The Ukrainian nation has ancient traditions; they must be maintained with zealous care.

10. It is necessary to revive the work of the National Council for Stable Development and ecology commissions under the aegis of the President of Ukraine and Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. If the role being played by the Ministry of the Environment and the responsibilities for environmental protection continue being neglected, it is necessary to initiate the creation of a public environmental ministry based on the Society for the Protection of the Environment, whose membership numbers over two million people, and to establish an All- Ukraine Public National Council for Environmental Protection.

11. The government should be advised to adopt measures aimed at instilling ecological thinking in officials and the public in order to create a noospheric mentality; introducing noospheric education in all educational institutions and bioadequate technologies in industries; and recognizing the supremacy of science in all fields of human endeavor. We must recall the words of Volodymyr Vernadsky, who said that the noosphere is our entire biosphere, transformed by scientific thinking, according to which mankind is becoming a mighty geological force before our very eyes, but that the noosphere does not emerge as a natural force: it is the result of a wisely organized human race.

12. In the country’s further practice, the work of all central and regional authorities must be aimed at lessening acute problems and gradually averting the heavy infrastructural crisis into which Ukraine is being drawn. To this end, it is necessary to find solutions to a number of narrow problems and rapidly introduce progressive technologies that would meet the demands of the 21st century with regard to motor, sea, rail, and air transport, industries, the agrarian sector, construction and development, and state administration. General plans aimed at developing all branches of industry, which would take into account Ukraine’s crisis-free evolution for centuries to come, must be formulated.

INTERNATIONAL REACTION

Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland): Experts from the Russian ecological organization Ekozashchita say that rescue and reclamation works in the aftermath of the ecological disaster in the Strait of Kerch, between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, will last up to 10 years, and cleaning the coastal waters will require no less than four billion Russian rubles (nearly 3 million). Other experts claim that the coast will suffer from this disaster for decades to come.

Der Spiegel (Germany): A Russian official told Vesti-24 Channel about “a drastic ecological catastrophe” that may well have dire consequences...Official sources claim that the vessel was carrying approximately 4,000 tons of oil. A spokesman for the emergency situations ministry said that only 1,200 tons of oil were spilled. However, Vesti-24, citing the environmental protection authorities, said it was actually 2,000 tons.

International Herald Tribune: The government says that what happened to the tanker in the Strait of Kerch is an environmental disaster, adding that some 2,000 tons of fuel oil were spilled. According to some estimates, some 30,000 birds have died. The damage to marine fauna may prove irreparable.

Russia’s ecologists say that the shipping disaster was caused by many years of negligence. The Russian authorities ignored the fact that their ships were using obsolete equipment. “This kind of disaster was just waiting to happen. If this practice continues, we will lose the Black Sea,” environmentalist Sergei Golubchikov told journalists in Moscow.

Meanwhile, the healthy state of the Black Sea is important for Russia. President Vladimir Putin has promised 12 billion rubles’ worth of appropriations for the development of Sochi, Russia’s Black Sea resort, as the site of the 2014 Olympic Games.

Yelena Vavilova, an expert with a regional environmental control agency, warned that “the abnormal content of oil in the water will remain for at least another five years.”

Ecologists are calling for more stringent regulations. “Russia needs a law that would regulate questions connected to water pollution, and the Strait of Kerch must be declared a higher-risk zone,” Sergei Golubchikov said. So far seabirds are the most obvious victims of this ecological disaster. Vassili Spiridonov, coordinator of marine and coastal projects at the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund, said “it is much more difficult to determine the damage to the ecosystem of the seabed.”