Whales of the Asian Pacific in Peril
by Michelle Boyd and Gary Cook

Plans to drill for oil in the Sea of Okhotsk on Russia's eastern coast of Russia threatens to devastate the last critical summer habitat for the Western Pacific gray whale. Since there are only about 80 Western Pacific gray whales left in the world, any loss of habitat is serious.

If completed, four oil projects in various stages of exploration on the outer continental shelf would completely surround Sakhalin Island with drilling platforms. The Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, Ltd., (SEIC) - a limited-liability consortium of Russian and foreign companies including Marathon, McDermott, Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi - has constructed two exploratory drill holes off Sakhalin's northeast coast and more are on the way.

While off-shore oil development has been shown to alter whale behavior - particularly their diet and habitat use - there has been no official assessment made on the effects of this project on Sakhalin's whales.

"I think there is definitely a threat to the whales," comments Masha Vorontsova, Russian director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "They could die out. Whales always go to the same place to breed. This is exactly where the Sakhalin-2 oil field is."

Vessels exploring for offshore oil bounce low-frequency pulses off the sea-bed to map areas likely to contain gas and oil. Gray whales use the same low-frequency sounds to communicate over distances of 5-20 km (3-12 mi.). Oil and gas exploration can mask these signals and can even damage the whales' hearing. Gray whales are particularly sensitive to the noise produced by the drilling on production platforms.

The stress of trying to escape the noise may also shorten a whale's life span. Whales usually swim away from noise, diving suddenly, and frightened cetaceans may not have time to replenish their oxygen supplies. Repeated emergency dives can lower energy levels and weaken a whale's ability to reproduce. Pregnant females and calves are among the most vulnerable individuals in a population.

SEIC is already polluting the ocean with hard-rock debris, drill-hole wastes (containing high concentrations of oil) and workplace sewage dumped directly into the sea. - all in violation of Russian water quality laws.

Marine organisms living near production platforms ingest ethylene glycol, sulfates, iron, cadmium, copper, arsenic, mercury and other toxic elements. Gray whales, which filter large volumes of bottom sediments when feeding, also ingest these damaging pollutants.

Russia's federal environmental protection law requires that exploratory drilling projects must be reviewed by a state government expertiza (expert panel) and approved by the relevant federal agencies but a thorough environmental and fisheries-impact assessment was never conducted for Sakhalin site. According to Dr. Melkov, a special consultant to the Russian Parliament, the only assessment that was performed was "absolutely unconvincing. It is simply a collection of general information that does not consider the specific conditions of the Okhotsk Sea and the licensed site itself."

The SEIC wrote its own environmental impact assessment for the project. Officials at the Far Eastern Regional Hydrometeorological Institute for Scientific Research who initially approved the SEIC's evaluation, have since admitted that the assessment was incomplete and biased.

Cetaceans surfacing in a fresh oil spill are likely to inhale harmful petroleum vapors containing toxic benzenes, toluenes, xylenes and aliphatics with anaesthetic properties. At high levels, inhalation of concentrated petroleum vapors can cause inflammation of mucous membranes, lung congestion and often-fatal pneumonia.

The risk of oil spills in the Sea of Okhotsk is significant since Sakhalin Island is one of the most seismically active areas in Russia, with the potential for 8.0 Richter-scale earthquakes. (A recent Sakhalin quake destroyed a city of 20,000 people.)

Although the Sea of Okhostk has 1.5-meter-thick (5-feet) drifting ice most of the year, the question of how the oil platforms will perform in these conditions has never been addressed. The SEIC's licensing plan failed to provide specific clean-up plans fin the event of accidents nor were there any provisions for monitoring spills or handling liability suits.

Greenpeace Exposes the Sakhalin Drillers

SEA OF OKHOTSK - On October 24, the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise approached the giant Molikpak oil platform in the waters off northeast Sakhalin. Three speedboats flying anti-oil campaign flags were launched 700 meters from the platform carrying seven Greenpeace activists and one representative of Sakhalin Environment Watch who raced toward the giant steel walls of Molikpaq and unfurled protest banners that read "No More Oil" and "Nyet Zagryazneniyu Morey" ("No Pollution of the Seas").

The Sakhalin Energy venture, commonly known as Sakhalin-2, is the largest foreign investment in the Russian Far East and the first in a series of ventures planned to tap the offshore oil and gas resources on Sakhalin's continental shelf. The project has been allowed to proceed despite potential damage to the island's fisheries-based economy.

Until the Greenpeace action, Sakhalin authorities and the SEIC had managed to keep the Molikpak operation away from the prying lenses of the electronic mass media. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the platform flies the flag of Panama and the wall of the steel monster is emblazoned with the word "PANAMA" in huge letters. Breaking the year-long campaign of secrecy served to raise the question why such a serious enterprise, on such a tremendous scale, was being carried out under the flags of a small, far-flung foreign country. Was it designed in order to avoid responsibility for potential oil spills?

Molikpak has neither drilled bore-holes nor recovered a single ton of oil, but the process of installing the platform has already caused serious damage to a large portion of the sea bottom. Around 140,000 cubic meters of earth were removed from the seabed and dumped in a deeper part of the Sea of Okhotsk, causing an increase in suspended particulate matter that threatened the survival of newborn fish. Many commercial fish species also were affected.

On Sakhalin Island itself, 40 square kilometers of soil were removed, disturbing the habitat for various shrimp and crab species important to the region's ecology and economy.

Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of stone from the Russian Far East port of Nakhodka were dumped at sea to stabilize Molikpak's foundation and to build a protective wall around the platform.. All these activities threaten the endangered grey whales and degrade a pristine area that is home to some 100 marine mammal species that are listed in the International Red Book of endangered species.

The area around Molikpak and the oil field provides habitat to some 100 marine mammal species that are protected in the International Red Book.

According to Vladimir Sangi, a well-known writer and representative of the Nivkhi (an indigenous people on Sakhalin Island), "The negative impact of the offshore projects has global significance. Its continuity cannot be limited to one century."

For more information: contact Dmitriy Lisitsyn, Sakhalin Environment Watch [E-mail: watch@sakhmail.sakhalin.ru] and Greenpeace [1436 U St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20009, (202) 462-4507].