Alabel Pass. Oil Product Spill
The Bishkek-Osh road, every year dozens of ecological disasters involving fuel tankers overturning, every year, hundreds of tons of highly toxic petroleum products: kerosene, fuel oil, gasoline spilled into high-altitude transboundary water intake rivers: Ablu-Naryn-Kara-Baltinka, Chychkan, cubic meters of contaminated soil with complete destruction of flora and fauna in the tens of meters around.
On August 12, 2020, at approximately 07:00 at the 209th km of the Bishkek - Osh highway (Alabel Pass), the driver of a fuel tanker lost control and veered off the road into the river; the vehicle exploded and caught fire. Specialists on site took soil samples from the oil-affected area and concluded that the penetration of petroleum products into the soil is at least 5-10 cm.
To eliminate the consequences of pollution, technical reclamation is first carried out worldwide. The spilled petroleum product is collected from the water and soil using sorbents. The contaminated soil is removed and stored at a special technical landfill, and clean soil is placed in the area from which the contaminated soil was removed. Throughout the entire time of recorded traffic accidents involving fuel tankers on the Bishkek-Osh road, NOT A SINGLE (!) reclamation has been carried out.
High-altitude ecosystems are sensitive to any anthropogenic impact. If they are not cleaned of petroleum products in a timely manner, there will be a strong negative impact on the environment – for decades, residues of diesel fuel will be leached by groundwater and oxidized in the soil.
At the same time, specialists note that the ecological damage is unlikely to be fully compensated. This concerns the cleaning of the surface and bottom of rivers, as well as soil remediation. They also noted that the maximum allowable concentrations of pollutants in rivers, where petroleum products enter in case of accidents, can exceed the norm by hundreds of times.
Discuss?
