
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 26, 1994                   TAG: 9411180019
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

OIL SPILL SOAKS ARCTIC TUNDRA U.S. OFFERS CLEANUP HELP

Calling a Russian oil spill a disaster, the Clinton administration said Tuesday it had offered assistance in assessing or cleaning up the spill but had received no response.

At a briefing for reporters, Deputy Energy Secretary William H. White showed what he called a bootleg copy of Russian film of the spill, depicting oil breaking through a dam and of a river burning wildly, with tornados of fire swirling along the edges of a slick, indicating a spill of some depth.

``Whether it be a hundred thousand barrels or two million barrels, that's a lot of oil. The lowest number we've heard from the Russian government is still 40 percent of the size of the Exxon Valdez,'' White said.

Alexander Avdoshin, spokesman for Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations, said the pipeline burst in February. He said he had no figure on the size of the spill but it was ``considerably smaller'' than reported.

There have been several minor spills along the aging pipeline, 1,000 miles northeast of Moscow, dating back to 1988, officials said.

Valery Ilyin, a spokesman for Komineft, which operates the line, said the most serious spill of crude occurred in late August, when 4.3 million gallons escaped. An estimated 4.9 million gallons of other contaminated liquids spilled, he said.

An emergency pipeline was built to bypass the area, and a 25-foot-high dike was built to contain the spill.

Heavy rain washed out the dike Oct. 1 near the town of Usinsk, and oil spilled into the Kolva and Usa rivers, tributaries of the Pechora, a salmon-spawning river which flows into the Arctic Ocean.

by CNB