Risks to Sakhalin's Fisheries

Sakhalin Environment Watch

Dredging on Sakhalin caused long-term damage to local fishing grounds. Photo by Sakhalin Environment Watch

Impacting Pristine Salmon Spawning Habitat:
SEIC/Shell built two 800-kilometer parallel pipelines down the length of Sakhalin Island to transport oil and natural gas from its Sakhalin II facilities in the north to export terminals in the south. Construction of these pipelines has proven highly disruptive to one of the world's most robust wild salmon habitats.

The Russian Far East is home to 1/3 of the world's remaining salmon stocks and fishing traditionally accounts for a significant portion of the economy on Sakhalin Island. Sakhalin’s salmon not only provide local jobs, they provide nutrition for the thousands of islanders who still maintain a subsistence lifestyle. The terrestrial pipelines were trenched through over 1,000 streams and waterways, cutting into vital salmon spawning grounds.

• Erosion
  Along the pipeline route, crucial forest and grasslands were destroyed to make way for roads, trucks, and the pipe itself; inadequate erosion-control and recultivation measures caused colossal landslides, flooding, and widespread contamination of neighboring waterways with runoff and silt. Once-teeming streams and rivers were flooded with murky, tainted water, while others are reduced to a trickle.This has proved disastrous for Sakhalin's salmon: adult salmon can only survive in clean, clear water, while salmon eggs and fry are extremely sensitive to even slight pollution levels. While SEIC/Shell has made commendable progress in recultivating the worst sites, many problems remain on the pipeline route.
  
  **See detailed photos of the serious erosion in this PDF, or go to additional graphic evidence of Shell's environmental negligence by clicking here.**
  

• Risk of Major Oil Spill
  The buried pipelines cross several active fault lines, creating a potentially catastrophic situation in one of the most seismically active areas in the world. The erosion described above uncovers buried pipeline, often to such an extent that the pipe's foundation is washed away, leaving the pipe exposed. In 2004, a report by American pipeline expert Richard Fineberg commissioned by Pacific Environment and a number of our allies exposed deep cracks in the seismic risk analysis conducted by Shell. The report documents that Sakhalin II seismic examinations present incomplete, inaccurate and contradictory information, understate seismic risks, fail to provide documentation of site-specific risks at individual fault crossings, and base findings on hazards to people, but not to the environment. Pacific Environment's local partner Sakhalin Environment Watch has called for the pipeline to be built “above ground, where earthquake-induced leaks can be detected, rather than to bury the problem, as Shell wants to do," but SEIC/Shell Shell rejected demands to keep the pipelines above ground in virtually every instance.
  

• Toxic Dumping
  In order to get to the oil and gas embedded in the sea floor, drills must bore hundreds of feet down through layers of earth and rock. The wet sludge that comes up with the drill bit must be removed to clear out the shaft: this slurry is a toxic mud full of dangerous hydrocarbon compounds. The sediment from the mud smothers flora and fauna residing on the seafloor, while the suspended toxic compounds contaminate surviving organisms and can be lethal to fish eggs. Hydrocarbons are also proven to cause genetic and structural deformities in fry; in the long run, this may lead to widespread degradation of fish food supply and populations. Despite this knowledge, SEIC/Shell illegally obtained a permit to dump the dredging waste from a project to deepen Aniva Bay into the shallow waters near shore, thus smothering plant life and directly resulting a massive fish kill. This underwater pile of sludge continues to inflict negative impacts on the marine environment and the commercial fishing industry it used to support.

**See a summary of impacts to Sakhalin's fishing industry here.**

See photos of fishermen protesting the dumping in 2005; the event was organized by the local environmental protection organization Sakhalin Environment Watch.