WWF CALLS ON DEPUTIES TO REVISE DRAFT OIL SPILL PREVENTION LAW
Bill No. 376642-7 "... is aimed at harmonizing the regulation of relations in the field of prevention and response to oil and oil products spills," says the explanatory note of the project. However, experts are convinced that the document in its current state will neither protect people nor help save nature from industrial disasters.
“The text of the draft law legislates the need for companies to have an oil spill prevention and response plan (OSR plan), which is a plus. Still, the proposal does not contain any requirements for such a plan. The project must include the basic requirements for the plan and the degree of readiness of an enterprise to implement it. And if an organization has some remote, particularly hazardous facilities (as in the case of Norilsk Nickel and the diesel spill), then such a company should have its own forces and means to respond to oil spills," Ekaterina Khmeleva, WWF-Russia's Director on Green Economy and Governance, said at the meeting.
The clause concerning the procedure for developing and agreeing an OSR plan with the Government of the Russian Federation also lacks specifics. The draft law contains obligatory coordination with the environmental supervision authorities, but there is no article referring to other regulations, according to which emergency response (ER) specialists, who are able to really assess the organization's readiness or the adequacy of the OSR plans to eliminate the maximum spill, participate in the coordination of plans.
Public awareness
will be facilitated by the statutory obligation of companies to publish in the
public domain the approved OSR plan in the part that does not contain
commercial and other secrets, as well as information on measures taken to
collect, process, utilize, neutralize pollutants that have entered the
environment through their fault.
WWF-Russia believes that it is necessary to expand the list of zones where it
is prohibited to locate such facilities,
and set deadlines for the operation of field oil pipelines and other
similar hazardous production facilities (HPFs) associated with the storage and
transportation of oil/oil products and/or the number of industrial safety
examinations in order to extend the life/operation of HPFs.
"The lesson with the diesel spill near Norilsk speaks volumes about the necessity of not only an organization's obligation to monitor the state of facilities to be fixed in the law, but the entire system of warning, production control and state supervision and public awareness should be built in a comprehensive manner," Ekaterina Khmeleva emphasizes.
Speaking about the financial mechanisms for solving the problem, WWF
believes that the measures proposed by the draft law (insurance, bank
guarantee, corporate reserve fund) will not be effective if the amount of
damage caused exceeds the estimates of the OSR plan, and also in cases where
the source of the spill is not identified.
Besides, the methodology for calculating compensation for damage proposed by
the new bill will not help determine the amount of actual damage to life,
health and property of citizens and legal entities, and requires significant
improvements. A similar mechanism for accounting for damage has already been
approved by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian
Federation in February 2019, and received a number of critical comments from experts.
Obviously, it is inefficient to spend budgetary funds for remedies on this
scale. WWF-Russia calls on the Government to take from the table the concept of a
special state extrabudgetary compensation fund.
Photo: (с) The Korea Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM)