Russia, China water down
problems By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW - As a toxic chemical slick that
originated in China's Songhua River flows toward
the border with Russia, officials of both
countries are already working together to tackle
the spill.
The China Daily newspaper
quoted sources from Heilongjiang province
Environment Protection Bureau as saying that the
slick was expected overnight Friday to enter the
Heilong River (Amur River in Russia), the border
between China and Russia.
The spill, which
occurred November 13, was caused by a blast at a
chemical plant in Jilin City, Jilin province in
northeast China. An
estimated 100 tons of benzene
and other chemicals polluted the nearby Songhua
River, disrupting the lives of millions living
near the water.
The spill prompted joint
action from the highest levels of government in
China and Russia, though Chinese officials
initially were mum about the incident before
opening up discussions on dealing with the
problem.
Speaking to reporters earlier
this week after Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia summits in Kuala
Lumpur, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he
and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao agreed to
clean up the slick and work more closely to
protect the environment in the future.
They met on the sidelines of the ASEAN
forum on Monday, with Wen reportedly apologizing
for the chemical spill.
Putin the next day
dispatched Emergency Situations Minister Sergei
Shoigu to Russia's Far East to deal with a
possible emergency in the Khabarovsk region.
According to ministry estimates then, it was
thought the slick could affect up to 70 Russian
towns.
As part of an agreement on Monday
between Russia and China, experts from both
countries began testing water from various parts
of the river. The border between the neighbors is
in the middle of the river.
According to
the agreement, both sides would take up to 72
water samples per day. All samples would be
divided into three parts: one for each side plus a
control sample for a possible arbitration over
compensation.
However, Russian experts now
believe the benzene spill may not be as dangerous
as previously expected.
Pollution of the
river was likely to dissipate to near permissible
levels by the time it reached the city of
Khabarovsk, said Vladislav Bolov, the head of the
Russian emergency situations national monitoring
and forecasting center. He previously estimated
the pollution level in the Amur River to exceed
the norm by seven to 10 times.
The China
Daily quoted Zhou Shengxian, director of the State
Environment Protection Administration, as saying,
"The concentration of the toxic chemicals in the
slick has declined sharply since the spill, and is
expected to be further diluted when it flows into
the Heilong River."
Meanwhile, Russian
officials plan to seek compensation from China,
despite Wen's apology. "I think that the guilty
side should finance measures to tackle the
environmental disaster," Alexander Kosarikov,
deputy head of the environmental committee of
Russia's lower house of parliament, told reporters
in Moscow.
Russia will file suits in
international courts, said Viktor Shudegov, head
of the committee for environment, education and
science of the Russian Federation Council, the
upper house of parliament. The Chinese should
compensate for damages, but most likely would not
do it voluntarily, he said.
The slick also
serves as a reminder of China's role in polluting
the Amur, which provides water to 1 million
residents of the Khabarovsk region. The Songhua
River (known as Sungari in Russia) is an Amur
tributary and a predominant source of pollution
for Amur, the Russians say. Roughly 80% of all
waste in Amur comes from Sungari, according to
Russian estimates.
The spill also reopens
other contentious issues.
Russian regional
officials, water management experts and media in
September reiterated warnings that Russia could
suffer economic and ecological damage as a result
of Beijing's plans to siphon off some Siberian
water resources, notably the waters of Irtysh into
western China.
The Irtysh basin stretches
from the Altai Mountains in China to Russia where
the river flows into the Ob, after crossing
eastern Kazakhstan. The Chinese are currently
using about 10% of Irtysh water, but China plans
to divert some 25% by 2020 or raise its Irtysh
water use by 1-1.5 cubic kilometers per year,
according to environmental officials in Russia's
Omsk region.
More than one million people
in Russia could be left without adequate water
supplies in case of uncontrolled water diversion
from the Irtysh, officials say.
Since the
total volume of water provided by the Irtysh is
about 9 billion cubic meters, the planned
diversion via the 300-kilometer long, 22-meter
wide Black Irtysh-Karamai irrigation canal could
have serious repercussions not only for the
economy and environment of Russia but also for
Kazakhstan.
The benzene contamination of
the Amur and renewed fears over planned Chinese
water diversion from the Irtysh followed rumors of
Russian water sales to China, including a
possibility of diverting water from Lake Baikal in
Siberia to China's Inner Mongolia.
Lake
Baikal has been seen locally as a potential source
for water exports. Since the early 1990s, experts
in the Irkutsk region circulated plans to build a
pipeline, several thousand kilometers long, from
Baikal to China. Their vision involved from one to
10 cubic kilometers of Baikal water per year
pumped to China.
Rumors of Russian water
sales to China have been sparked by growing water
demand in China, where reportedly some two thirds
of cities are facing water shortages. In May,
Chinese officials dismissed these allegations, but
some Russians remained wary.
The Chinese
chemical spill now seems to be a short-term blip
in bilateral relations, causing relatively minor
damage. The China Daily quoted Putin as saying the
incident "should not harm bilateral relations".
However, the slick is a reminder that
water resources could become divisive eventually.
Sergei Blagov covers Russia and
post-Soviet states, with special attention to
Asia-related issues. He has contributed to Asia
Times Online since1996. Between 1983 and 1997, he
was based in Southeast Asia. In 2001 and 2002,
Nova Science Publishers, NY, published two of his
books on Vietnamese history.
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