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Kamchatka Krai
Environmental Disaster on Kamchatka. Follow-up.

We continue to monitor the present ecological situation on Kamchatka. 

What is really going on at the peninsula at the moment? Nobody has an answer to this question, there are only versions, some of which induce nervous laughter, and some – serious alert.

Environmental Disaster on Kamchatka. Follow-up.

What does Kamchatka Ministry of Nature Resources say?

The Ministry was the first to post in Instagram a video with views of serene, clean seaside, followed by the text: “Khalaktirsky beach this very moment. The water has a normal color, the air smells normal, the beach is absolutely clean. In the morning “Nalychevo” Nature Park inspectors examined the coastal area, and didn’t fix anything unusual. The MES explore the coast at its full length on quads and with help of drones. Also a research group headed up to Malaya Lagernaya. Besides this the Federal Service, the Environmental Service and the Urban Mobility Authority keep sampling the water”.

The video was commented by outraged users who got severe allergic reaction after a walk at the beach. The commentators also payed attention that a viewer can easily notice traces left by the equipment, with help of which the seashore was cleaned before the video was shot.

What does Kamchatka Hydromet say?

On Sunday the Hydromet commented on the situation: regarding their version “the dead bodies of marine animals, discovered by the surfers on the shore, most probably appeared at the location by coincidence, but not because of nature forces raging by Kamchatka shore”. There really was a storm on Kamchatka, but we cannot clearly understand the explanation given.

What does Kamchatka governor say?

At briefing on Monday morning Kamchatka region governor, Vladimir Solodov, announced that there are three main versions: human activity, natural phenomenon and seismic activity. There came no details regarding the first version due to absence of information, but on the second one he gave quite an exciting explanation, telling that it was all connected with “the behavior of the so-called seaweed, which was carried to the shore during the storm”. It should be said here, that the governor’s pagan belief in nature superpower can be traced in all his announcements in general. Prior, in social media he gave even a more exciting comment, announcing that “the situation will settle down due to unique ocean’s ability to self-recover”.

What do they say in social media?

Meanwhile in Instagram accounts of the surfers, who raised the alert, there constantly appear updates. Thus, @yola_la posted satellite shots of river Nalycheva, which flows into the ocean. On the shots it’s easy to see that it was the river that brought the pollution into bid water. As it was found out later, by the river there is placed Kozelsky chemicals and poisons military testing ground. 

Anton Morozov @snowave_kamchatka texts that he received many links to articles about the testing ground. “More than 108 tons of chemical poisons and pesticides were buried there from 1979 to 1982. Nobody could eliminate them by that time - it was too expensive to remove them - so it was decided to bury (!) them by the volcano sole, among unique rivers, swamps, lakes, few dozen kilometers away from the ocean. It is also said, there can be illegal burial”. He also reminds military exercises which took place in the waters of the Pacific Ocean about a month ago. 

The “Kommersant” say the militarists deny their ownership to the water pollution. 

The kamchatka_online publisher seem to escalade the version of the waste leakage from the military test ground to a Chernobyl disaster scale, or they make their new one, taking a guess (which has no proof) about the poisoning with heptyl, rocket fuel, the toxicity of which can be compared to chemical weapon. 

Later Anton Morozov noted that after the storm the water became clearer, but yellow impurity and odor remained, and after three hours of presence at the shore the throat became itchy. 

The surfers sent water samples to Moscow for them to be put on independent test, and plan to visit the locations on river shot by the satellite, so to examine everything at the location and find out what really is going on.

The “Kommersant” points out that the mass death of marine animals was also fixed at the Kuril islands. 

The official water samples from the rivers flowing into Avachinsky bay – Nalycheva, Taenka, Sukhaya – will be provided by the October, 5th.