Environment Ministry: No risk of Russian oil spill endangering Bulgarian waters
Bulgaria’s Ministry of Environment and Water is monitoring the situation caused by the oil spill near the Kerch Strait and there is no risk of significant oil pollution reaching the western part of the Black Sea and endangering Bulgarian territorial waters and the Bulgarian coast, the ministry said on December 16.
Caretaker Minister of Environment and Water Petar Dimitrov is in contact with the Ministers of Environment of Romania and Ukraine, the statement said.
The Ministry of Environment and Water has also requested information from Türkiye and Georgia.
As a result of a strong sea storm yesterday, two tankers were involved in a disaster in the Kerch Strait, one of which has already sunk, the ministry said.
The statement said that the tankers are Russian and so far Russia has not reported how much oil products have been spilled into the sea, but it can be assumed, based on the capacity of the tankers, that several thousand tons of oil products have been spilled.
The incident is similar to that of November 2007, when several tankers sank in the strait and 1300 tons of oil were spilled immediately after the incident, and a total of over 8000 tons.
Parts of the oil pollution that reach the interior of the Black Sea will likely remain in circulation eddies.
“There is no risk of significant oil pollution reaching the western part of the Black Sea and endangering Bulgarian territorial waters and the Bulgarian coast,” the ministry said.
The Black Sea Region Basin Directorate has been carrying out regular monitoring of sea waters since the beginning of the war in Ukraine and after the incident in Nova Kakhovka until now, including for oil and oil products, and if necessary, an extraordinary survey will be carried out.
Scientists from Bulgaria’s national meteorological bureau are monitoring incoming information (including satellite images) and are prepared to use computer numerical models to predict the spread of oil spills.
The forecast for the wind over the Black Sea over the next four days by Associate Professor Nikolai Valchev, an expert in hydrodynamics from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, is for trong winds from the western quarter with gusts of about 25 m/s.
This will create conditions for the formation of a local circulation (anticyclonic vortex), which will keep the flow of pollutants from the Kerch Strait in a relatively narrow water area in the northwestern part of the basin.
This situation will create conditions for delayed penetration and possible spread of polluted waters to the water area of Ukraine.
The Ministry of Environment and Water will inform the public at any time when new information on the case is received, the statement said.
(Illustration: Ministry of Environment and Water)
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