The Black Sea As An Integrator
THE BLACK SEA AS AN INTEGRATOR
of INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE
V. Skripnik
The Odessa State Maritime Academy, Ukraine
The state of enclosing the environment is determined by the balance between an amount of acting contaminants and its capacity to self-cleaning. In forming ecological balance in such enclosed sea area, as the Black sea, having the specific area if water collection in the world and week intensity of vertical circulation\’s, not only productive activity in the coastal zone and developed navigation play an important role. In many respects it depends on intensity of downthrow of noxious substances in shallow waters, in spite of the fact that their sources are far from the coastal line, on the usage technologies without waste products, on the availability of the perfect machinery for rendering industrial outbursts at all stages of production and finally, on the high ecological culture of all strata society.
Proceeding from the peculiarities of hydrological conditions and vulnerability of ecosystems, the Black Sea and neighbouring with it the with it (him) the Azov Sea are referred to so-called "special zones" with strict requirements to contaminants downthrow, that has found reflection in the norms of the International Convention for prevention of pollution from ships, 1973, as modified by the protocol of 1978 relating thereto (MARPOL 73/78). Thus, the affective of the productive activity of the person on sea is regulated now on many points, especially in a part concerning the ships’ operation and maintenance of recommendations sailing facilities and drilling platforms. Definitely positive role in pollution prevention is played by the norms of the nature protection legislation of separate inshore countries, and also series of the documents at an international level. At the same time activating of production activity on inshore shelf, the share of concerns and responsibilities of different in accordance with the places of a dislocation of the applicable exclusive economic areas have spawned a series of the dangerous tendencies. Thus, the international nature protection acts - Bucharest Convention on the Black Sea, Odessa Ministerial Declaration, International Convention on control over the safety are of almost pure
declarative nature. The problems of the environmental protection are observed only from the point of view of jurisdiction of separate countries disregarding transbordering of influence of contaminants on ecosystems of the whole basin and possibilities of natural environment to neutralize the consequences of their affecting.
The existing situation radical changes in the approaches to ecological problems of the Black Sea. In their basis can lie the priority of conditions, which will provide stable existence and reproduction of the inhabitants of a marine environment. The essence of these conditions consists in the choice as a defining criterion the natural ability of the marine environment to self-cleaning. It is necessary to take into account, that in the problems of adapting ability of the sea the considerable experience is accumulated by a series of scientific centers of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: it is enough to execute Institute of the Biology of the Southern Seas, its Odessa Department, Ukrainian National Center of Ecological Monitoring, Institute of the Market Problems, Hydrophysical Institute etc. Therefore, for standardizing rated magnitudes it will be enough generalize the available data and to determine the necessary volume of revision.
The proposed concept of nature protection activity requires respective changes in original positions of the international legal acts on environment protection. In case magnitudes and taking as a basic for the adapting ability, the magnitude of a communal limit of anthropogenous environmental impact in an aspect of a totally admissible amount of executable contaminants can be strictly determined. Supposing, that their inflow is a stable process, it is possible, with the definite corrections on odds of emergency downthrow, to modify the Bucharest Convention and to determine the magnitudes of limits on downthrow of pollutants in it. These limits the regulating factor, as they will be distributed among the countries of the Black Sea and the Azov Sea basin proportionally their area of the water collection and the magnitude of the exclusive economic area. At the same time the full freedom of acts will be given to the Sides of the Convention within their limits. It is necessary to bear in mind, that for the nearest 10 years the increase of freight traffics especially Caspian oil between ports of the Black Sea is expected. That’s why the second limiting factor, which is also based on the value possible downthrow, should be the amount of ecologically dangerous cargo transported by a single transport means. Due to this even in case of emergency or wreck of the ship with such weight, which is not expected by the marine practice, the ecological catastrophe for any locale of basin will be eliminated.
By the relevant position of the new concept should also be the fixing on an international level the collective responsibility for the destiny of the basin not only ecological potential of the Black sea should be included, countries having shore line. To the number of the participants not only the users of a but the countries of the basin of the water collection as well. The general position of the proposed concept has received a support on two international symposium EUCC 1995 and 1996 years as the problems are also characteristic for other "special regions", defined by MARPOL 73/78.
Alongside with the legal side of ecological safety of the Black and Azov seas it is necessary to intensify an operating time of data and creation on their basis the effective devices and systems for vessels, other sailing facilities and coastal productions realizing downthrow of polluted waters in the open sea and internal pools. One of the relevant practical aspects of the given direction is the full elimination oil impurities due to withdrawal from water the contaminants up to the residual contents less than 0.05 p.p.m. at full salvaging of oil of slimes. Such problem is quite soluble on the basis of available machinery taking into consideration the data of scientific researches, where the regulations are detected, updated and generalized and the conditions of multiphase refining process are matched.
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