River Lena adverse events and their causes. Ecological situation of the five largest rivers of the Russian Federation
The source of the Lena is considered to be a small lake 12 kilometers from Lake Baikal, located at an altitude of 1470 meters. At the source on August 19, 1997, a chapel with a memorial plaque was installed. The entire upper reaches of the Lena up to the confluence of the Vitim, that is, almost a third of its length, falls in the mountainous Cisbaikalia region. Water flow in the Kirensk area is 1100 m 3 /sec. The middle current includes its section between the mouths of the Vitima and Aldana rivers, 1415 km long. Near the confluence of the Vitim, the Lena enters Yakutia and flows along it to the very mouth. Having accepted Vitim, Lena turns into a very large, high-water river. Depths increase to 10-12 m, the channel expands, and numerous islands appear in it, the valley expands to 20-30 km. The valley is asymmetrical: the left slope is lower; the right one, represented by the northern edge of the Patom Highlands, is steeper and higher. On both slopes there are dense coniferous forests, only occasionally replaced by meadows. From Olekma to Aldan, the Lena does not have a single significant tributary. For more than 500 km, the Lena flows in a deep and narrow valley cut into limestone. Below the city of Pokrovsk there is a sharp expansion of the Lena Valley. The current speed slows down greatly, nowhere does it exceed 1.3 m/s, and for the most part drops to 0.5-0.7 m/s. The floodplain alone is five to seven kilometers wide, and in some places even 15 kilometers wide, while the entire valley is 20 kilometers or more wide. Below Yakutsk, the Lena receives its two main tributaries - Aldan and Vilyui. Now it is a gigantic stream of water; even where it runs in one channel, its width reaches 10 km, and its depth exceeds 16-20 m. Where there are many islands, the Lena overflows for 20-30 km. The banks of the river are harsh and deserted. Settlements are very rare. In the lower reaches of the Lena, its basin is very narrow: from the east, the spurs of the Verkhoyansk Range, the watershed of the Lena and Yana rivers, advance; from the west, insignificant elevations of the Central Siberian Plateau separate the basins of the Lena and the Olenyok River. Below the village of Bulun, the river is compressed by the Kharaulakh ridges coming very close to it from the east and Chekanovsky from the west. About 150 km from the sea, the vast Lena delta begins.
River hydrology The length of the river is 4400 km, the basin area is 2490 thousand km 2. The main food, as well as almost all tributaries, is melted snow and rainwater. The widespread distribution of permafrost prevents the supply of groundwater to rivers, with the only exception being geothermal springs. Due to the general precipitation regime, the Lena is characterized by spring floods, several fairly high floods in summer and low autumn-winter low water levels of up to 366 m 3 /s at the mouth. Spring ice drift is very powerful and is often accompanied by ice jams. The highest average monthly water flow at the mouth was observed in June 1989 and amounted to 104,000 m 3 /s; the maximum water flow at the mouth during a flood can exceed 250,000 m 3 /s. Hydrological data on water flow at the mouth of the Lena in different sources contradict each other and often contain errors. The river is characterized by periodic significant increases in annual flow, which occur not due to the large amount of precipitation in the basin, but primarily due to the intensive melting of ice and permafrost in the lower part of the basin. Such phenomena occur during warm years in the north of Yakutia and lead to a significant increase in runoff. For example, in 1989, the average annual water flow was 23,624 m 3 /s, which corresponds to 744 km 3 per year. Over 67 years of observations at the Kyusyur station near the mouth, the average annual water flow is 17,175 m 3 /s or 541 km 3 per year, and had a minimum value in 1986 - 13,044 m 3 /s.The earliest, at the end of April, the spring flood begins in the Kirensk region - on the upper Lena - and, gradually moving north, advancing on the still ice-bound river, reaches the lower reaches in mid-June. During a flood, water rises 6-8 m above the low-water level. In the lower reaches, the water rise reaches 10 m. In the wide expanses of the Lena and in places where it narrows, the ice flow is menacing and beautiful. Large tributaries of the Lena significantly increase its water content, but, in general, the increase in flow rates occurs from top to bottom quite evenly. Economic use To this day, Lena remains the main transport artery of Yakutia, connecting its regions with the federal transport infrastructure. The main part of the “northern delivery” is carried out along the Lena River. The Kachug pier is considered the beginning of navigation, however, upstream from the port of Osetrova, only small ships pass through it. Below the city of Ust-Kut, right up to the confluence of the Vitim tributary on the Lena, there are still many difficult areas for navigation and relatively shallow places, forcing annual dredging work. The navigation period lasts from 125 to 170 days.
Lena river this is the largest Siberian river. By world standards, it is rather large. The Lena is the tenth longest river in the world. The length of the river, from source to mouth, is 4,400 km. The area of the drainage basin is 2,490 thousand sq. km. The river is mainly fed by melt and rainwater. It flows through the territory of Yakutia in the Irkutsk region.
Where does it occur: The source of the Lena River is located near Lake Baikal, on the Baikal Ridge. The height of the source above sea level is 1470 meters. It is from here that the largest river in Siberia originates from a small swamp. In its upper reaches, the Lena flows through the mountainous Cisbaikal region and its channel is relatively narrow. The middle course is the segment between two tributaries: Vitim and Aldan. In its middle reaches it is already a large, full-flowing river, with a depth reaching up to 20 meters. Coniferous forests grow on both banks. After the city of Yakutsk, two more large tributaries flow into the river - Aldan and Vilyui. Lena turns into a truly gigantic stream. Its width is 10 km, and sometimes it floods over 30 km. Further on, the river bed is sandwiched between mountains and ridges, which prevent it from overflowing. At the mouth, the river forms a vast delta with many branches and flows into the Laptev Sea.
Characteristics of the Lena River.
The length of the river is 4400 km.
The catchment area is 2,490,000 sq. km.
The maximum width of the floodplain is 30 km.
Maximum depth - 21 m.
Fall - 1470 - 0 = 1470
Slope: 1470 divided by 4400 (dip by length) = 0.33 m/km or 33 cm/km
Feeding: the river is fed mainly by melt water, in the upper reaches it is fed by glaciers.
Large tributaries: Olekma, Aldan, Vitim, Vilyui.
Biological resources, inhabitants: kondevka, nelma, omul, muksun, burbot, taimen. In the upper reaches there are: lenok, dace, pike, grayling, perch.
Freezing: late October, early November. The opening occurs in the upper reaches from late April to mid-May, in the lower reaches - in early June.
The river regime is characterized by spring floods and several high floods in the summer. In autumn and winter there is low water. Ice drift is often accompanied by ice jams and is very powerful.
Economic use of the Lena River.
The Lena is one of the cleanest rivers in the world. The river bed has not been changed by humans. At the moment, no dams, hydroelectric power stations, or other structures have been built on the river. In uninhabited areas you can still drink water straight from the river.
Since there are not many settlements on the banks of the river, its economic use is not very intensive. This makes it possible to preserve its unique nature. As mentioned above, no dams, etc., have been built on the river, but the Lena, nevertheless, is the main transport artery of Yakutia. Navigation starts from the Kachug pier. Unfortunately, before the confluence of the Vitim, the river is not navigable.
Largest ports: Osetrovo, Kirensk, Lensk, Yakutsk
Ecological problems.
Scientists from the University of Alaska, the Institute of Permafrost Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the national French Center for Scientific Research have found that global warming has a negative impact on the river. In these parts, in winter the temperature drops to -70 degrees, and the permafrost is one and a half kilometers. Scientists have found that over the past 40 years, air temperatures have risen by 4 degrees. Floods, already very strong, are only gaining strength every year, which destroys the banks of the river. Besides. The islands move downstream of the river. In 2009, their descent rate reached 27 meters per year.
Many people living in the European part of Russia have a rather poor idea of what kind of natural resources the country has. We are talking about global resources of global importance. This is bad. Therefore, from time to time it is useful to conduct a “public inventory” so that at least some basics are fixed in the public consciousness. A society that knows its natural resources, uses them wisely and to its own delight, has a good chance of preserving its native nature and improving the quality of its own life. This article will focus on the plant that they want to build on our great river, the Lena. We will conduct a mini-investigation of this initiative, and at the same time we will tell you about the stunning pearl of Russia, which has planetary significance.
Great Lena
Before assessing the plant, it is important to understand the importance of this river. There is hardly a person in Russia who has not heard about the Volga, but with Lena things are much worse. Naturally, there is nothing to do with the conspiracy, it’s just that there are thousands of settlements on the Volga, including 4 million-plus cities, and the largest city on the Lena is Yakutsk, which is home to only about 300,000 people. The banks of the Lena are very sparsely populated; there are areas for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers where there is no one at all except hunters and desperate travelers with scientists.
Meanwhile, the Lena is longer than the Volga, it is among the TOP 10 world rivers in terms of length and in the TOP 8 in terms of fullness. Its length is 4400 kilometers. There are no hydroelectric power stations or large industries on the Lena. Thanks to this, the Lena is one of the world's cleanest rivers. In general, the phenomenon when a river of such a scale has a very insignificant anthropogenic load is unique. On the Lena there is a natural monument included in UNESCO World Heritage List- the famous Lena Pillars. We don’t even need to talk about the ecological and economic significance of Lena - it is impossible to overestimate it. This is a huge natural storehouse: reserves of fresh water, fish, amazing tourism potential, which is currently used very modestly.
Photo: www.lifewomenstyle.ru
Factory
Now that we have made a short description of the river, let's move on to the plant. So, opposite Yakutsk, in the village of Nizhny Bestyakh, Megino-Kangala ulus, on the banks of the Lena River, they want to build an enterprise producing fertilizers, the raw material for which is natural gas. Construction initiators - Indian corporation Global Steel Holdings Ltd and Rostec. The plant plans to produce methanol and urea, which will be exported to countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The logistics scheme is as follows: the company’s products are delivered by rail to the port and from there to the Asia-Pacific countries.
What will Yakutia get? - First of all, about 1,500 new jobs. In addition, the investment attractiveness of the region and the overall competitiveness of the republic at the international level should increase. When production reaches full capacity by 2030, the annual increase in gross regional product will be about 40 billion rubles. After a certain number of years, the tax holiday will end and the company will begin to pay serious taxes to both the federal and regional budgets. Of course, the construction of the plant should give a powerful impetus to the development of the region’s economy.
Why was this particular location chosen? Firstly, because of the unique and at the same time fairly cheap raw material - natural gas without sulfur impurities. Secondly, all necessary communications intersect at the construction site: there is a power line and the Lena federal highway, there is a railway line right there, and in addition, the place is more than provided with water resources.
However, Yakutia is not the Krasnodar region, the presence of all the above resources is wonderful, but the nature of these places is not only beautiful, but also harsh. In winter, the thermometer can drop to -50, and the soils are not very suitable for construction.
“We don’t have a queue of investors even for the development of natural deposits, of which we have a lot,” says the head of the State Budgetary Institution “Investment Development Agency of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)” Alexey Zagorenko.
Therefore, one of the most important impetuses for this kind of projects was Federal Law “On Territories of Rapid Socio-Economic Development in the Russian Federation”, which stipulates significant tax and other benefits for investors. The construction site is included in the Zarechye TASED. This fact is no less important than the combination of raw materials and infrastructure opportunities in the village of Nizhny Bestyakh.
The goal of the Federal Law “On PSEDA” is to implement the project at maximum speed and at the lowest cost for the investor. On the one hand, this is good and correct, but on the other hand, such a formula carries significant environmental risks. There is no guarantee that officials, in their zeal to “build at any cost,” will not commit many wrong actions that will cost both people and nature dearly. That is why it is worth directing public attention to such projects in order to reduce the likelihood of at least major mistakes.
By the way, with public attention to this project in Yakutia, everything is very good. People have already held two rallies against construction, which attracted about 5,000 people. For a sparsely populated republic, this is a significant result. At the moment, we do not identify with any of the opinions: “for” or “against”, we are simply stating the fact that citizens take an active position in protecting their own nature, and this, in itself, is excellent. However, in Yakutia there are, of course, supporters of the construction of the plant, there are quite a few of them. It would probably be correct to conduct a public opinion poll on this matter.
In the sphere of power, there is also no single point of view on the plant. While the executive branch is more inclined towards construction, the legislative branch expresses a different point of view. Deputies of the District Council of the Megino-Kangalassky district oppose the construction of the enterprise; in this they are supported by the people's representatives of the Khangalassky district. In addition, the chairman of the Public Chamber of Yakutia, Vyacheslav Alekseev, spoke on this matter:
“Taking into account the insufficient attention by the initiators of the project to the physical and geographical features of this area and the poor level of information to the population, the Public Chamber of Yakutia calls on the republican authorities to abandon the construction of a gas chemical plant on the territory of the Megino-Kangalassky district and proposes to determine a more suitable place for this, based on environmental and physical geographical features and availability of labor resources.”
It turns out that a broad public discussion is a necessity. In our opinion, the discussion should take place not only at the regional, but also at the federal level with the involvement of experts. Yes, Lena is not as widely known as the great lake of Russia - Baikal, but she is no less important for the nature of the country.
One of the best ways to understand how building a plant will affect the environment is to consider its counterpart. This is what the Yakut deputies did when they visited the OJSC Novomoskovskaya AK Azot enterprise, which also produces urea, where they met with the director of the plant, Alexander Savenkov, who had worked at this production for 40 years. He spoke about the construction as follows:
“Firstly, these are unfavorable climatic conditions - frozen rocks and low temperatures, it will be difficult to maintain the temperature necessary for production, which should not fall below 130 degrees Celsius, otherwise ammonia and urea will crystallize and clog the pipe, which will lead to stagnation of production if not for an accident. Any soil movements, and they will happen, because... The permafrost soils of Yakutia are also fraught with serious problems for equipment.
The next problem is expensive electricity - 6 rubles kW/hour, for comparison in the European part of Russia its cost is 2 rubles kW/hour.
Thirdly, the potential construction site has sandy, water-saturated soils. And it is impossible to create such tailings dumps as in the Tula region. Filtration will go straight to Lena.”
In addition, Savenkov noted that open sewage treatment plants can simply freeze in winter and therefore not work. In addition, he doubted that specialists would go to Yakutia. According to him, his company is building 5 factories, and they are experiencing a shortage of personnel. Savenkov questioned the fact that an Indian company would be able to independently prepare a feasibility study (feasibility study) due to the specifics of Russian legislation. As the director of the plant said, the only designer carrying out this work in Russia is the Urea Research Institute, located in the city of Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region. By the way, the question arises: why doesn’t an Indian company that wants to build in Russia transfer the order for the creation of a feasibility study to a Russian research institute?
However, the director of the urea production plant can hardly be called an independent expert. In the end, the enterprise planned for construction will produce the same products as Savenkov’s company. They may be direct competitors. However, all the words of a specialist, especially in the field of ecology, should not only be taken into account, but also forwarded in the form of questions to the initiators of construction.
Let us now turn to the extent of possible environmental impact. For example, the production group of OJSC Novomoskovsk AK Azot annually “donates” about 30 million cubic meters of wastewater to the environment. The release into the atmosphere amounts to 8 thousand tons of polluted substances. In addition, about 144 thousand tons of waste of the first and fifth classes are transferred to third parties or processed. From these figures it becomes clear that Lena and the surrounding lands will be subject to quite powerful man-made impacts.
It is also interesting to quote the opinion of the head of the Department of Oil and Gas Business and Petrochemistry of the Far Eastern Federal University, Alexander Gulkov:
“It is much easier to lay a pipe and organize gas processing in the Amur region. In Yakutia, transport costs are much higher, even taking into account the existing railway - which is not yet operational. In addition, Yakut minus fifty is not minus twenty. The cost of heating the plant will also contribute to the final cost of the product.”
Where is the most serious danger hidden?
Often people see environmental danger where the threat is, in fact, minimal, and at the same time do not notice the main risks. To prevent this from happening, we carried out a small investigation into the products of the planned plant: urea and methanol.
Urea (urea) is a substance of hazard class 3 (moderately hazardous). It can enter the human body through the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. It does not cause acute toxic effects. Long-term inhalation of urea in concentrations above the maximum permissible leads to chronic inflammation of the bronchi and trachea (tracheobronchitis), in addition, the functions of the kidneys and liver change. Meanwhile, modern technologies make it possible to prevent exceeding standard concentrations.
It should be noted that urea decomposes quite easily, resulting in the release of ammonia and carbon dioxide. Aquatic organisms are not prone to bioaccumulation.
Methanol is also a moderately dangerous substance. Among its negative properties, it is worth noting that it is easily flammable, as well as the fact that it can cause poisoning, characterized by headache, general weakness, chills, nausea, malaise, and vomiting. However, modern technologies for working with this substance make it possible to prevent such developments. There have been no recorded cases of poisoning in production even by methanol vapors: for this purpose, factories have strict safety rules and special protective measures, and permissible concentrations of harmful substances are monitored. In the environment, methanol decomposes to water and carbon dioxide, that is, substances common to nature.
Thus, the products that are going to be produced at the enterprise pose a fairly moderate danger to people and nature, but the same cannot be said about production waste, which can bring great harm to both citizens and Lena. At the moment, neither the planned technologies nor the amount of pollutants are known. However, by analogy with OJSC Novomoskovskaya AK Azot, there will be a lot of them.
conclusions
Firstly, it is worth submitting the project for the construction of a urea and methanol production plant on the Lena River for all-Russian discussion, since the river is no less important for Russia than Baikal. Perhaps we should completely abandon the construction of any dangerous industries on this waterway. The Lena is a huge and at the same time uniquely clean river that needs a special regime of protection. It is important to discuss its fate at the federal level, possibly assigning it a special legal status.
Secondly, alternatives to this plant should be considered. Today there are many technologies and industries that will allow us to develop the economy and at the same time minimize harm to the environment. In addition, the tourism potential of Lena is very poorly used. With a well-structured strategy, the tourism sector can bring very serious money to the republic.