Kamchatka Governor Solodov Relays To Sputnik Latest Developments In Pollution Incident

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th October, 2020) KAMCHATSK, October 8 (Sputnik) - Russian consumer watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, had not established higher levels of pollutants in wild fish caught off the shores of Kamchatka, where an ecological disaster had played out over the past month, the region's Governor Vladimir Solodov told Spuntik on Thursday.

"Rospotrebnadzor constantly analyzes the quality of fish. Where fish is caught in industrial fishing, draconian sanitary and veterinary studies are carried out. All the fish are normal and the fish that appear on the shelves, Rospotrebnadzor very carefully monitors that there is no excess of harmful substances. Such is not observed anywhere," Solodov told Sputnik, adding that this time of year was not low-season in regional fishing.

Answering Sputnik's question about the perceived lag in government and regulatory response to the pollution incident, Solodov pointed to the geographical obstacles that make immediate response difficult.

"The ocean is huge, we can't just analyze the entire ocean in some more or less representative way. Therefore, a visual inspection is done where there are some manifestations: either a changed color, or foam, something else that may give scientists a hypothesis that there may be something. Samples are already being taken there, and we analyze the state of water and mollusks. We immediately take analyses of living or dead organisms everywhere so that they can be analyzed for toxins," the governor said.

Solodov went on to say that divers were yet unable to establish the level of damage to the marine life at the seafloor due to ongoing stormy conditions. This way, he warned that there was no confirmation of earlier reports from local scientist Ivan Ustanov who claimed that 95 percent of all benthos life in the Avacha Bay had been died due to the pollution.

"We do not yet have an estimate of the collapse of aquatic organisms in the entire water area.

There were two dives, and in these two dives [recorded] a massive drop [in aquatic ecosystems]. But we cannot say that 95 percent is dead in entire area, this is not true. As soon as the weather improves... we will continue expeditions with divers," Solodov said. "Now they are systematically preparing for dive to be possible to draw conclusions about the extent of damage to aquatic biological resources. After that, it will be possible to talk about the calculation of the damage incurred."

He noted that it is too early to say how soon the ecosystem can recover.

"Because we neither understand what to recover from, nor the extent of the disaster, or the cause. When scientists figure it out, it will be possible to make forecasts for recovery," the governor added.

Solodov went on to say that local authorities were establishing contact with all known surfers in the region and those who had recently visited in order to gauge whether they have any negative health effects.

According to the governor's information, eight out of the 20 examined surfers have shown first-degree corneal burns.

In late September, surfers noticed that the water at a beach in the Kamchatka Territory had changed color and they had developed eye and throat problems as a result. Moreover, images posted on social media showed dead sea animals washed ashore in the area. Activists fear an ecological catastrophe.

The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case and investigations are ongoing but the cause of the incident, however, remains unknown.

The situation in Kamchatka is one of the latest ecological incidents Russia has recently faced. Earlier this year, a major oil spill in the Arctic city of Norilsk polluted a lake. Also, the authorities are still working to eliminate pollution resulting from an abandoned chemical plant in the town of Usolye-Sibirskoye in the Irkutsk Region.