16 June 2004 10:16
Russian oil development threatens fish - environmentalists
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 16 June: Work to deepen the floor of Sakhalin's Aniva Bay, near to the settlement of
Prigorodnyy, where a liquefied natural gas plant is being built, is preventing salmon from spawning, environmentalists
said today. They believe that dumping the soil lifted by suction dredges to a depth of just 72 m is dangerous and call
for this procedure to be moved further out from the bay to the some 1,000 m down below.
Both the Sakhalin Ecology Watch organization and local fishermen say that Aniva Bay accounts for 25 per cent of
Sakhalin's catch of humpback salmon and is a site of fish nurseries. The plant is being built by the Sakhalin
Energy company, which extracts oil on Sakhalin's continental shelf.
Fish stocks on the Sakhalin shelf have gone down to one-eighth. What is more, the rare Korean-Okhotsk population of
grey whales is being squeezed out as their underwater feeding ground is taken by the Molikpak sea platform.
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
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