‘I’ve never seen such an extensive film of pollution:’ New oil spill dumps over 10 tons of petroleum in the Black Sea, killing birds and coating Russian beaches

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https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/09/04/i-ve-never-seen-such-an-extensive-film-of-pollution

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/41826094

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"Based on current [satellite] images, the area [of the slick] already measures 350 square kilometers. In my entire career, I’ve never seen such an extensive film of pollution on the sea. The film remains quite thick for this type of petroleum product. This means that the slick currently contains at least 10 metric tons of petroleum products. It’s located west of Anapa, with a small chance of some reaching the shore north of Anapa. The slick is moving toward Crimea, but for now it’s passing south of the Kerch Strait." -- Sergei Statichny, remote sensing expert at Russia’s Marine Rescue Service, according to pro-Kremlin agency TASS

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It must be so confusing being a bird. You've got these long gangly aliens building inconceivably large portable and indestructible nests, and travelling insane distances - clearly the work of a superior lifeform.

And then they just dump this toxic stuff all over the place, killing all your friends. At first you must think "*well, maybe this is beneficial in the longrun and the deaths were unavoidable*".... but when it keeps happening and the effects get worse each time, you really begin to question their motives.

And that's why seagulls stealing food out of people's hands is based.

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it must be confusing to be a russian. you exist, but you neither live nor think nor are free nor belong to yourself.

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Oh my god you GOT ME. I thought I was being so subtle!

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it must be confusing to be an american. you exist, but you neither live nor think nor are free nor belong to yourself.

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Oil is too dangerous. We need to immediately phase it out. The risks are just too great

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Comments in Europe@feddit.org

Not trying to downplay this but the headline seems to imply this is a historically large amount of oil to spill. The 2010 deepwater horizon spill had 780,000 m³, so this spill is like roughly 0.002% of that amount.

Still fucked up though.

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This was in the Black Sea and not in the Gulf of Mexico. This comparison doesn't make sense imo.

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Surely size works the same in both places?

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Even in the same article:

Former incident:

two Russian oil tankers collided in the Kerch Strait, leaking thousands of tons of heavy fuel oil into the Black Sea.

This incident:

contains at least 10 metric tons

The quote in the headline may be true but it can't come from an expert who should also have seen the former incident.

‘I’ve never seen such an extensive film of pollution’

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