The Environment Chronicle

On 6 March 2013, the vessel Nikolay Bauman sank in the Black Sea near the Danube Delta between Romania and Ukraine coastlines. The vessel carrying 2,700 tons of plaster was covering a route from Turkey to the Ukrainian city of Kherson when water began entering the ship through a hole in the bow and almost immediately flooded its front compartments. As reported, a large oil spill was discovered near the coastline in Ukraine’s Odesa region. The area of the oil spill is about 5.3 square kilometers.

Six underground storage tanks at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state are leaking radioactive waste, but there is no immediate risk to human health, officials said on 22 February 2013.

On 12 February 2013, a 600-square-meter section of the roof over the turbine hall at the fourth power block collapsed at Chernobyl nuclear plant. The collapse was caused by heavy snowfall, emergency authorities said. Chernobyl plant spokeswoman Maya Rudenko said the affected area is about 50 meters away from the reactor.

On 17 January 2013, a US Navy minesweeper Guardian run aground on a UNESCO protected coral reef off the Philippines. The ship hit the coral reef in the Tubbataha National Marine Park. Tubbataha Reef is about 80 nautical miles east-southeast of Palawan island.

On 12 June 2012 between 17,000 and 30,000 litres of oil leaked into the Danube in the port of the Slovakian capital Bratislava on Tuesday, local media reported. The fire brigade were able to retain most of the leaked oil in the port area, but indeterminate volumes are thought to have reached the Danube and its branch, the Little Danube.

An oil spill was caused by a pipeline rupture on 7 June, polluting a tributary of Red Deer River, in Alberta, south-west Canada. 475,000 litres of crude oil was spilt, threatening the drinking water supply of the 90,000 inhabitants of Red Deer. The operating company Plains Midstream Canada stopped pipeline operations and shut the valves as soon as the leak was discovered, as well as setting up floating booms.

On 29 May 2012, Unit 4 at the Cattenom nuclear power plant was automatically shut following an electricity failure.

On 25 April 2012, a large amount of diesel fuel was spilled into the Angara river. The accident occurred because of an illegal tie-in into the local oil pipeline where it intersects a storm drain in Usolye-Sibirskoye. Current estimate say that about 300 metric tons of diesel fuel were spilled into the river.

Penly Nuclear power station located 6 miles northeast of Dieppe, Normandy, France was automatically shut down on April 5, 2012 at 11:20 UTC. Operating company EdF reported two small oil fires inside the reactor building from a leaking oil pipe. By late afternoon, a defect was identified on a joint of one of the four cooling pumps of the nuclear reactor 2, causing a leak of radioactive water collected in tanks designed for this purpose. This event has been classified as level 1 on the INES scale.

On 25 March 2012, Total reported that a gas leak occurred following an operation on well G4 on the wellhead platform at the Elgin gas field which is located in the UK North Sea approximately 240 km east of Aberdeen. On May 16, Total announced that the leak was stopped after a well intervention operation, which involved pumping heavy mud into the leaking well. From an estimated initial gas flow rate of around 2 kg/second, the leak had progressively decreased to an estimated 0.5 kg/s.

The Comandante Ferraz Brazilian Antarctic Base is a research station, as part of the Brazilian Antarctic Program, located in Admiralty Bay, King George Island, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 130 km from the South American continent. The station began operating on 6 February 1984. On 25 February, 2012, a blast in the machine room housing the generators at the station caused a fire that, according to the Brazilian navy, destroyed approximately 70% of the compound.

On 4 February 2012, a pipeline carrying pressurised oil fractured in the state of Monagas, Venezuela. Anywhere from 40,000-120,000 barrels poured into a river that supplies drinking and irrigation water. Monagas state Gov. Jose Gregorio Briceno declared a "state of emergency" following the spill, halting water distribution and closing schools in the state's capital of Maturin, which is located approximately 255 miles (410 kilometers) northeast of Caracas.

The Panamanian registered general cargo ship Tycoon was wrecked on 8 January 2012 after breaking her moorings and was pushed into the cliffs at Flying Fish Cove, Christmas Island and broke up, spilling oil and phosphate into the sea.

On 8 January 2012, the container ship Rena broke in two after enduring heavy winds and seas overnight. By 10 January 2012, the stern section had sunk almost completely.

On 16 December 2011, the Maltese-registered cargo ship TK Bremen ran aground off Erdeven beach in southern Brittany, on the north-west coat of France. The public authorities said in a statement a kilometre-long strip of fuel was headed towards the beach.

On 7 November 2011, Chevron had an oil spill when unexpectedly high pressure in the oil pool caused a spill and seepage through weak ocean bed rock. Estimates of the amount of oil entering the ocean vary depending on the source of the reporting, but a conservative estimate is at least 3000 barrels escaped.

On 5 October 2011, the Liberian-flagged container ship Rena, grounded north of New Zealand, some twenty kilometres off the coast of Tauranga. The ship was carrying 1,368 containers, eight of which contained hazardous materials, as well as 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 200 tonnes of marine diesel.

On 12 September 2011, an explosion occurred at a nuclear waste processing center in the Marcoule nuclear facility in southern France. The Nuclear Safety Authority said no radioactive leaks have been detected in the blast at 12:37 p.m. (1037 GMT, 6:37 a.m. EDT) at an oven in the Centraco nuclear site.

On 10 August 2011, an oil spill was caused by the rupture of a pipeline on the Shell-owned Ganett Alpha platform, located in the North Sea. The oil platform is 113 miles (180km) off Aberdeen. Two leaks broke out, causing a spill of 218 tonnes of crude oil. The leaks were plugged after 10 days: this was the worst oil spill in this area in 10 years.

Northern German nuclear reaktor Brokdorf was taken offline on 7 August 2011.

On 4 August 2011 UNEP presented its new report to the President of Nigeria, The Hon Goodluck Jonathan, in the Nigerian capital Abuja. The independent scientific assessment of the environment and public health impacts of oil contamination in Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta, shows that pollution from over 50 years of oil operations in the region has penetrated further and deeper than many may have supposed.

BP has reported a pipeline leak at its Alaskan oilfields. BP said a pipeline at its 30,000-barrel-per-day Lisburne field ruptured during testing and spilled a mixture of methanol and oily water onto the tundra. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said the spill occurred on 16 July 2011 and amounted to 2,100 to 4,200 gallons.

The Bohai bay oil spill was a series of oil spills 2011 at Bohai Bay, China. On June 4, 2011 the Penglai 19-3 oilfield caused an oil spill from a sea floor leak that lasted until June 7. On June 17 a second oil spill that occurred at the Penglai 19-3 oilfield, but was contained within 48 hours. A third leak took place on July 12 with the Suizhong 36-1 oil field.

The Fukushima nuclear accidents are a series of equipment failures and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the 9.0 magnitude Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011.

On 28 April 2011, Plains Midstream Canada experienced a pipeline failure on its 20” Rainbow Pipeline, located in Northern Sunrise County approximately 95 km northeast of Peace River, Alberta. The failure resulted in a release of approximately 28,000 barrels of crude oil.

On 25 April 2011 fire broke out on the High Fens, Belgium. Some 1,000 hectares of this nature area have been destroyed.

On 4 April 2011 TEPCO discharged 11 500 ton of contaminated water from their radioactive waste treatment facility to the sea.

The German tanker Alspray caught fire in the night of 29 March 2011 at BP's Emsland refinery. The vessel sank after various explosions with 900,000 litres of gasoline on board. The accident happened during loading works.

MS Oliva ran aground on Nightingale Island on 16th March 2011. All 22 crew were rescued by 17th March before the ship broke up and Nightingale Island is now facing an environmental disaster.

Ontario Power Generation notified the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) at 11:33 pm on March 14, 2011, that there was a release of 73,000 litres of demineralized water at the Pickering A nuclear generating station earlier that day, due to a pump seal failure. The radiological risk to the environment and people's health is negligible.

The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, officially named the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred on Friday, 11 March 2011. The earthquake triggered a tsunami that devasted Japan´north-eastern coast and caused a number of nuclear accidents.

An earthquake of magnitude 9.0 hit north-east Japan followed by a series of powerful aftershocks and Tsunamis. The epicentre of the earthquake is located 400 km away from the capital Tokyo at a depth of 32 km. The earthquake occurred at 14:46 local time (05:46 GMT) on March 11. The areas most affected are the prefectures of Miyagi, Fukushima, and Iwate.

On 4 March 2011 NASA's Glory mission launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 5:09:45 a.m. EST failed to reach orbit. Telemetry indicated the fairing, the protective shell atop the Taurus XL rocket, did not separate as expected about three minutes after launch. The new Earth-observing satellite was intended to improve our understanding of how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth's climate.

On 17 February 2011 an Icelandic-owned container ship ran aground around the islands of Hvaler on Norway’s southeast coast. The cargo vessel Godafoss was leaking oil in an area that borders the new Outer Oslo Fjord National Park. It was unknown exactly how much oil is on board the ship, built in 1995, but estimates are as much as 800 tonnes. Oil was leaking from two tanks that can contain 250 tonnes each on both sides of the ship, which currently sits lopsided where it has run aground.

A tanker ship, the Waldhof, carrying 2,400 tonnes of sulphuric acid capsized on the Germany's Rhine River on 13 January 2011. The accident took place near the Lorelei rock.

On October 4, 2010 at 12:30 the western dam of cassette X of the sludge reservoir, owned by Magyar Alumínium ZRt (Hungarian Aluminum Co), had ruptured. Due to the ruptured dam, a mixture of 600-700 thousand m3 of red sludge and water inundated the lower sections of the settlements of Kolontár, Devecser and Somlóvásárhely via the Torna creek.

Environmental authorities in northeastern China are monitoring chemical levels in a major river after floodwaters carried more than 3,000 barrels filled with toxic chemicals into it. State-run Xinhua news agency says the containers floated into the Songhua River in northeastern Jilin province Wednesday after flood waters swept through a chemical plant. Another 4,000 barrels that washed out of the factory were empty. Officials briefly cut off water to Jilin city, leaving its four million citizens dependent on bottled water for a day.

On 27 July 2010, a wellhead in southeastern Luisiana was sprewing a mist of oil and gas up to 100 feet into the air after being hit by a tugboat. The leak is about 65 miles south of New Orleans in the Baratavia Bay, which is surrounded by wildlife-rich wetlands and was a fertile area for fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen before the BP spill.

On 26 July 2010, a pipeline belonging to Enbridge Inc. burst in Marshall, Michigan, releasing more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek, a waterway that feeds the Kalamazoo River. The spill has affected up to 25 miles of the Kalamazoo River. The spill site, located between Marshall and Battle Creek, includes marshlands, residential areas, farmland and businesses. While the oil leak has stopped, this incident is far from over. EPA believes over a million gallons of oil may have leaked into the river. The Kalamazoo River is a fast-moving river and EPA’s focus right now is on preventing oil from the Enbridge spill from affecting sensitive shorelines and, ultimately, keeping the oil out of Lake Michigan.

The spill in the north eastern port city of Dalian, happened after two pipelines exploded on 16 July 2010, spilling oil into the Bohai Gulf. The pipelines were transferring oil from a Liberian tanker ship to storage facilities in Dalian’s Xingang Port. One pipe exploded, triggering a series of explosions in another pipeline and breaking open a storage tank. An estimated 11,000 barrels (1,500 tons) of crude leaked into the ocean, creating an oil slick that has expanded over 435 square kilometres.