Oil and Ecology at Odds in Kaliningrad
By Steven Paulikas
Special to The St. Petersburg Times
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For The St. Petersburg Times
The development of D-6 off the Baltic Sea's Curonian Spit pits oilmen against ecologists and Lithuanians against Kaliningraders.
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CURONIAN SPIT, Lithuania/Kaliningrad - The golden dunes and towering forests of the Curonian Spit seem to exude a sense of natural majesty and calm. Yet this 99-kilometer wisp of wild and sandy land in the Baltic Sea shared by Lithuania and Kaliningrad has become ground zero in an increasingly contentious conflict pitting oilmen against ecologists and two increasingly divergent cultures against each other. Oil major LUKoil's announcement earlier this year that it plans to begin exploiting an oil field called D-6 off the coast of the spit, a UNESCO world heritage site, has been tacitly endorsed by Moscow and even the local residents of the southern, Russian sector of the peninsula. But it is being fiercely resisted not only in the northern sector, but in Lithuania as a whole. The venture, projected to produce 600,000-700,000 metric tons of crude per year for three decades, has rankled Lithuanians, who object to the platform's proposed construction site, which is 22 kilometers from the spit and only 7 kilometers from the international maritime border - close enough to virtually guarantee massive environmental damage should an oil slick develop. While Russian officials and LUKoil executives alike maintain that the environmental effects on the spit will be minimal, Russia's Natural Resources Ministry has ignored repeated requests from Vilnius to share the results of the impact study it claims to have conducted. The controversy over the platform has raised serious concern among the Lithuanians living on the northern end the spit. "This is just the biggest load of rubbish ever," said Danguole Sauliene, director of cultural affairs in the Lithuanian municipality of Neringa, located in the central section of the spit, roughly 350 kilometers from Vilnius. "I'm at a loss - all the people here are at a loss - as to what to do," said Sauliene, who fears that oil from the D-6 field could permanently destroy the delicate ecosystem of the spit, which separates the sea from the enormous yet shallow Curonian Lagoon. The 3,000 residents of the Lithuanian side of the spit depend overwhelmingly on tourism and fishing -two activities sensitive to the environmental health of the region - for the economic well being of their community. "I don't know a single person here who isn't afraid of D-6," said Irma, who sells smoked eel to tourists in the fishing village of Juodkrante. "If there's an accident, fishing will be damaged, and the tourists will stop coming. Would you let your children swim in a sea full of oil?" LUKoil has vowed to use the same technology it employs in much more elaborate projects, such as those in the Caspian region, to guard against spills or leaks. But Lithuanians, who stand to gain nothing from the drilling, for the most part simply don't trust the intentions of the company, or Russia for that matter. Adding to the distrust is LUKoil's sometimes awkward handling of the matter, which has done little to comfort a Lithuanian conscience still tender from decades of occupation. "What kind of guarantee can we give?" said one company official. "We could talk about the [Chernobyl-style] Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania - no one in Lithuania will guarantee the safety of that." Also compounding public opposition to the project is what Lithuanians view as the Russian government's cavalier attitude about it, refusing, for example, to share the details of its environmental impact study and resisting two UNESCO resolutions mandating that an international team of experts inspect the site. Faced with a little more than tacit moral support from the European Union, Lithuanian politicians have, perhaps belatedly, begun to act. Last month, the Lithuanian Conservative Party threw its support behind a movement to boycott the network of gas stations owned by LUKoil's Lithuanian subsidiary LUKoil Baltija. The initiative, originally organized by the Lithuanian Green Movement, an environmental action group, gained widespread media attention while inflicting an undisclosed amount of financial damage on LUKoil. Emotions over the current crisis are further complicated by the long history of D-6, a field that was discovered by Soviet geologists in 1983. After locals on the Lithuanian side learned of plans for intensive drilling a year later, mass protests derailed the government's plans, creating a 20-year lull in petroleum extraction in the eastern Baltic Sea. "Russians want to come and shit on my home, just like they did before," said Kazimeras Mizgeris, an artist and long-time resident of Neringa, who has been active in the campaign against the platform. "Of course I'm angry about it." "These idiots will come here, pump, and if something goes wrong, we'll just hear, 'oops, sorry.' But for us, it will be a complete disaster," he said. The predominant pattern of land use in the Lithuanian sector of the spit, which requires strict adherence to conservation laws, reflects a national sentiment bordering on obsession with the area. "Even in Soviet times, there were different regulations on each side; there was a ban on farming and a cap on the number of people allowed to live here," explained Stasys Mekalis, mayor of Neringa. The growing sense of anxiety about D-6 has some of the Lithuanian residents of the peninsula increasingly focusing their outrage not only at distant Moscow, but at their Russian neighbors to the south. The differences in mentality, history, and material well-being are palpable when crossing the heavily fortified border into the Russian sector of the spit. In an area where Russian rural poverty exists within uncomfortably close proximity to an up-and-coming European resort, environmental concerns are taking a backseat to the need for economic revival. Kaliningraders' enthusiasm for LUKoil as one of a scarce few potential economic saviors is bolstered by the company's considerable presence in the geographically isolated region. LUKoil officials claim to directly contribute some 40 percent of Kaliningrad's municipal and regional budget revenues, a figure independent analysts say is closer to 30 percent, but nonetheless significant. While residents up and down the spit prepare for what they say is the inevitable implementation of the project - the platform is nearly finished on the Russian mainland - for better or for worse, environmental groups in Lithuania and Russia warn that such a large field will eventually require more than a single platform to exploit, a claim that LUKoil will neither confirm nor deny.
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