MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. The damage to fish resources from the oil spill near Norilsk is estimated at about 1.9 million rubles ($26,000). Fish in Lake Pyasino is not affected, Mikhail Gladyshev of the Institute of Biophysics at the Krasnoyarsk Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch said during a presentation of the Great Norilsk Expedition’s results on Thursday.

“The biomass of zoobenthos’ feed organisms has shrunk by more than ten times and by more than two times in the Daldykan and Ambarnaya Rivers,” the expert said. “Due to this, the total damage to water biology resources, estimated in accordance with approved practice of Rosrybolovstvo (fishery authority), is 1.9 million rubles.”

The calculation includes expenses on fish stocking, though this work should not be done now, as restocked fish would die without sufficient feed, he added.

The expedition also noted that diatoms dominated in the Norilskaya River, in Lake Pyasino and the Pyasina River, as it did many years before the accident, which proves the spill had not affected the ecosystem.

“We have observed high capabilities of the microbiological system for self-cleaning from organic pollutants,” the final report reads. “Microflora of the surveyed waters is adapted to oil products and is able to participate in their absorption. However, in the Ambarnaya River, due to high concentrations of oil products, not only the number of oil-oxidizing bacteria is decreasing but also their abilities for oxidizing volatile compounds of petroleum, benzene, toluene and naphthalene are impaired.”

Expedition to Taimyr

The Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has sent to the Taimyr Peninsula, at the invitation of Nornickel, a big scientific expedition to conduct a large-scale examination of the area. Scientists will use the expedition’s results to present suggestions for industrial companies, working in the Arctic, on how to preserve the nature.

The expedition’s key points were watersheds of the Rivers Pyasina, Norilka and Ambarnaya and Lake Pyasino. In August, experts from 14 research institutes of the Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch collected samples of soils, plants and sediments and began tests at the institutes’ labs.