Taymyr expedition to survey bio resources following 2020 devastating fuel spill
NORILSK, July 13. /TASS/. A scientific expedition will assess the ichthyofauna on the Taymyr Peninsula in the Krasnoyarsk Region's north following the devastating fuel spill in Norilsk in May, 2020. It will be a part of a unique scientific project, scientific leader of the Taymyr Expedition of the Russian Federal Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) Vyacheslav Bizikov told TASS.
On May 29, 2020, a fuel tank at the Norilsk CHPP-3 (combined heat and power plant) of the Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company (NTEK, Norilsk Nickel's subsidiary) collapsed, releasing 20,000 tons of oil products that got into the soil and reservoirs. The fuel spill affected the Norilsk-Pyasino lake-river system - from the accident site downstream to the Kara Sea. The then first deputy minister of emergency situations, Alexander Chupriyan, said it was the largest ever spill on the planet.
"Among the expedition's main tasks is to assess consequences of the 2020 accident, to study the distribution, sizes and species composition of ichthyofauna, zooplankton, phytoplankton and zoobenthos (the community of animals living around sediments and aquatic plants). The task is to assess productivity of studied reservoirs, both those affected by the accident and the reference reservoirs, throughout the Pyasinsky basin, starting from Norilsk, that is, from the Norilsk River (the Norilka), Lake Pyasino, the Ambarnaya River, the Daldykan and the Pyasina River and its six tributaries," the scientist said.
NTEC's Project Office leader, Konstantin Sinekayev, told reporters the company expected from this expedition detailed information on the reservoirs' conditions, as well as recommendations on amounts and locations of fry to be released. "To us these answers are important to structure the activities aimed at effective restoration of valuable and specifically valuable fish species," he said. The company would use the information in building fish hatcheries, he added. Yevgeny Fedorov, Norilsk Nickel's vice president, noted that the company had been financing regularly projects aimed at supporting biodiversity, including investments in biodiversity surveys conducted by the largest research institutes. According to the head of the national fishery authority, Rosrybolovstvo, Ilya Shestakov, results of the surveys would be used in further long-term work to restore the aquatic ecosystem and stocks of valuable whitefish in the region.
It is a "pioneer project", and no country in the world has experience in such surveys, Vyacheslav Bizikov continued. "The methods of research, monitoring and scientific recommendations on land reclamation and restoration of fishery productivity in the Arctic zone are unprecedented. We will be using the methods, that we will develop in the Pyasinsky basin, throughout the Russian Arctic," he said.
In this expedition already, the experts will be using special sonar equipment to explore the depths, and underwater drones to study biotopes. VNIRO will be the first to conduct live observations under water in the Norilsk-Pyasinsky basin.
The studied territories will be about 1,000 km long from south to north, and from west to east - 500 km, he said. That is why the expedition, planned to begin on July 12, will continue for about 6 weeks. It will be conducted by three scientific groups of ichthyologists, hydro biologists, hydro chemists, hydrologists. Two field groups will work "on the ground": one near Norilsk, and the second will study the Pyasina River and will reach the Kara Sea coast. The third scientific group will be located directly in Norilsk and will process promptly at laboratories all the incoming materials. An important component of the comprehensive assessment of aquatic bio resources in the Norilsk-Pyasinskaya lake-river system will be genetic studies of valuable fish species living in the studied water bodies and populations of Siberian sturgeon (listed in the national Red Data Book).
2020 Expedition
VNIRO's first expedition to assess the damage from the fuel spill took place in summer, 2020 "in a rush, emergency manner." Despite the urgency, those studies yielded results shared by all the participants, including Norilsk Nickel.
Back then, researchers said the damage amounted to about 8,900 tons of biological resources, and it can be restored by the middle of the current century. On the basis of these data, the Yenisei Department of the national fishery authority, Rosrybovstvo, filed a suit with the Krasnoyarsk Region's Arbitration Court to recover about 59 billion rubles ($655 million) from Norilsk Nickel's subsidiary. In July 2022, the parties stuck a settlement agreement, under which Norilsk Nickel will reimburse all damages in kind.
Under that settlement agreement, the company undertook to release the young valuable fish species into the affected reservoirs. From 2023 to 2032, the defendant must release annually 3 million Siberian sturgeon fry into the Yenisei, and from 2033 to 2050, every year about 28.4 million fry sturgeon, nelma, muksun, whitefish and chira into the Daldykan, the Ambarnaya, the Pyasina and the Pyasino Rivers. Additional terms include the building of a fish breeding plant and the financing of VNIRO scientific research to assess aquatic biological resources in 2023-2051.
Research program
"The agreement provides for close cooperation between Rosrybolovstvo, VNIRO and Norilsk Nickel. This cooperation has developed at the settlement agreement stage. In the course of that work, Norilsk Nickel has proved to be responsible and highly professional," Bizikov stressed, adding that cooperation with the metallurgical company continues.
The expedition is a part of a multi-stage scientific program, actually created jointly with Norilsk Nickel. The first stage is to assess the situation on the water and to develop scientific recommendations for fish hatcheries' construction; and to determine producers. A large-scale release of fry will begin in 2032. By that time, should be created breeding herds of five valuable and especially valuable fish species, including Siberian sturgeon of the Pyasino population. By using genetic passports of the released fish, scientists will be able to track how the population recovers.
"Our work's ultimate goal is to restore completely the Norilsk-Pyasino ecosystem and to reach the fishery output not at the level of the 1980s - we have set a more ambitious task - to reach the indicators of the 1930s, when industrial fishing was only developing here," the scientist concluded.
