RF sends inquiry to China for Jilin chemical plant incident

KHABAROVSK, January 19 (Itar-Tass) - Russia has sent an inquiry to the
Chinese side in connection with an incident at a chemical plant in the
province of Jilin where there was a fire and discharge of gases into the
atmosphere on January 17, head of the Far Eastern territorial department
for hydrometeorology and environmental monitoring (Dalgidromet) Alexander
Gavrilov told journalists on Tuesday.
He stressed that according to Russian-Chinese agreements and a signed
memorandum, the sides send to each other mutual notifications in the event
of "existence of a serious ecological threat to the neighbouring
territory." "We have not received such a notification yet, so it can be
supposed that there is no threat today to the Russian territory," Gavrilov
noted.
"The analysis of the map of air flows' spread shows that there is no
threat to territories of the Russian Far East due to the discharge of
gases. Air masses have passed the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and are
currently over the Pacific Ocean," the Dalgidromet head said.
"If we presume that something has all the same got into the waters of
the Sungari (Songhua) River, as it was in 2005, then I should say that the
distance from the incident site to Khabarovsk is 1,496 kilometres, and the
time of the water flow to Khabarovsk is some 30 days," Gavrilov pointed
out. According to him, there is time to get prepared for any scenario of
developments, "if the threat emerges." "So we are keeping our fingers on
the pulse of environmental problems," he stressed.
The urgent notification about an emergency in the event of dangerous
developments "is made by the sides in two forms - usual text and coded
form." In any case they provide information on "the time, place of the
incident, its scale, causes, contamination sources and type of chemical
agents in discharge zones," the official said.
In this case "we have enough time for the deployment of our forces and
equipment, as well as for notification of the population in the event of a
real threat," Gavrilov noted. However, he believes that it is unlikely
that the threat exists.
The Songhua River (also known as the Sungari River in English, a name
which comes from the Manchu language meaning White River) is a river in
Northeast China, and is the largest tributary of the Heilong River (Amur),
flowing about 1,927 km from Changbai Mountains through the Heilongjiang
and Jilin provinces. The river drains 212,000 square miles of land. It
joins the Amur at the town of Dongjiang. The river has a dam at Fengman,
which is used for hydroelectricity production. It forms a lake that
stretches 62 km upstream. Below the dam, the river flows northwest until
its largest tributary, the Nen River, joins it near Da'an. The Nen River
drains the northern Manchurian Plain. The river travels east until it
joins the Hulan River near Harbin. Then it passes between the northern end
of the eastern Manchurian mountain system and the Lesser Khingan Range.
The river then flows into the Amur River valley. The river freezes from
late November until March. It has its highest flows when the mountain snow
melts during the spring thaw. The river is navigable up to Harbin by
medium-sized ships. Smaller craft can navigate the Songhua up to Jilin and
the Nen River up to Qiqihar.
The extreme flatness of the Manchurian Plain has caused the river to
meander widely over time. The result of the meandering is that the river
is surrounded by a wide plain that is filled with swirls and curves,
showing paths the river once took.
In November 2005, the river was contaminated with benzene, leading to
a shutdown of Harbin's water supply and threats of a Russian lawsuit
against China.
The slick reached the Amur River on December 16, and arrived at the
Russian city of Khabarovsk four to five days later. In readiness, a
communications hotline had been set up between Chinese and Russian
agencies, and China offered water testing and purifying materials,
including 1,000 tonnes of activated carbon to Russia. Khabarovsk planned
to shut off its water supply in "extreme circumstances," prompting
residents to stock up on water.
After exiting the Amur River, the contaminants entered the Tatar
Strait and then the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan (East Sea), which
have Japan, Korea and Far-East Russia on its littorals.
Xie Zhenhua, China's Minister of State Environmental Protection
Administration, resigned and was succeeded by Zhou Shengxian, former
director of the State Forestry Administration.
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