14 DAY TRIAL // After the Arctic 30 was released from prison and allowed to return home, Greenpeace said that it was nowhere near done protesting the oil industry. For those who doubted this statement, here is proof that the organization was in fact telling the truth.
In a blogpost published on Greenpeace’s website this January 22, the organization accuses Gazprom, i.e. the very same company that got the Arctic 30 into trouble just a few months ago, of covering up several dozen oil spills that occurred in Siberia.
The organization goes on to explain that, back in August 2013, a local non-governmental organization sounded the alarm and said that an oil spill had occurred in Siberia’s Tomsk region.
According to Greenpeace, it took Rosprirodnadzor, i.e. Russia’s environmental supervision agency, about two months to send some specialists in the area and ask them to take a look at an oil field exploited by Gazprom.
Later, the agency said that, according to its investigation, the spill reported two months ago had not in any way contaminated the environment. What’s more, Gazprom was quick to add that just 90 kilograms (about 198.5 pounds) of oil had spilled, and that there was no reason to worry.
The entire conundrum ended with Gazprom’s being fined about $300 (roughly €221.5), Greenpeace maintains. As was to be expected, the organization did not take either Rosprirodnadzor’s or Gazprom’s word for it, and carried out its own investigation into the matter at hand.
More precisely, it collected and analyzed satellite images, and found that a total of 71 oil spills had occurred in said part of Siberia, and that the area affected by them amounted to roughly 3.1 hectares.
“Greenpeace Russia has strong reasons not to trust the conclusions of Gazprom and Rosprirodnadzor, as it appears that both the company and state agency attempted to downplay the scale of the spill,” the organization writes on its website.
“It is very possible that after the company learned state inspectors had been informed of the accident they covered the spills with soil to hide them,” it adds.
Presently, Greenpeace is waiting for a prosecutor it contacted shortly after coming in possession of the satellite images to carry out another investigation, and make sure that Gazprom pays for its decision to cover up these spills.
“In most cases, paying a paltry fine and covering the spill with sand is the only responsibility Gazprom bears for all the damage it causes to the environment,” environmentalist Vladimir Chuprov commented on this incident.
“With outdated oil pipeline infrastructure and lax state control, it's not surprising that concealing oil spills rather than cleaning them up is the common practice in Russia,” he added.