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

DATE: THURSDAY, October 27, 1994                   TAG: 9410280016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                  LENGTH: Medium

OIL SPILL REACHES 2 RUSSIAN RIVERS

An oil spill from a broken pipeline has reached two rivers and drenched tundra in Russia's Far North, but Russian officials insisted Tuesday it poses no serious environmental threat.

The size of the spill was unclear. U.S. Energy Department officials said it could range from 4.5 million gallons to more than 80 million gallons. The higher estimate would be eight times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. The spill, first reported in Tuesday's New York Times, extends over the frozen ground like a ribbon about 3 feet deep, 40 feet wide and 6 to 7 miles long, Deputy Energy Secretary Bill White said Tuesday in Washington.

Alexander Avdoshin, a 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 called it ``considerably smaller'' than 80 million gallons.

There have been several minor spills along the aging pipeline, about 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 that flows into the Arctic Ocean.

Avdoshin said regional authorities did not report the collapse until Oct. 4 because it was not ``major.''

A Moscow representative of the environmental group Greenpeace criticized the official response. ``No real cleanup has been done,'' said Igor Blokov. ``There is still a half-meter [11/2 feet] of oil on the lower Pechora.''

Spilled oil was 4 inches thick in creeks of the Kolva, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

The fragile permafrost above the Arctic Circle takes a long time to recover from damage, environmentalists noted. There are no villages on the two small rivers, Avdoshin said.

Ilyin, the Komineft spokesman, said workers were skimming oil from the water and washing plants and river banks with high-pressure hoses.

``It's all under control now,'' he said by telephone from Uktha. ``The Pechora is clean, according to local civil defense experts. The salmon is unaffected.''

by CNB