Spring flood bill

The causes of the last year’s spring flood in the district named after Lazo (the Khabarovsk territory) were discussed at the meeting held at the office of the Representative Plenipotentiary of the President of Russia in the Far Eastern Federal District on May 3 of 2012, Transneft informed yesterday. The public servants believe that the construction of objects of the “East Siberia – Pacific Ocean” - II system in the territory could be one of the causes of the flood: when Transneft was laying the pipeline, it made the road crossings too narrow, and the trees felled during the construction obstructed the river flow. All this complicated the flood situation in the region, where Kiya and Khor rivers overflowed their banks, waterlogging 12 villages and towns and over 5000 hectares of agricultural land. The authorities calculated the damages at 50 million roubles.

According to the source acquainted with the meeting documents, the public officials decided that Transneft and Gazprom were to pay for the damages. The latter company is facing similar claims: Gazprom constructed the gas pipeline Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok in the territory.

The Gazprom representative says that the company has not received any documents to this respect. His Transneft colleague informs that public officials have in fact presented claims. He does not comment the eventual bill amount, but declares that the company does not agree with the accusations: “Transneft constructed no new roads in the territory, all works were done in accordance with the project documentation and requirements of ecological and water legislation”. He stresses that the check by the Rosprirodnadzor confirmed that. The Gazprom representative assures that the company has nothing to do with the floods. The representatives do not say whether the companies are going to compensate for the damages. The Khabarovsk administration was unavailable for comments.

Arthur Rokhlin, Partner of the Firm, believes that the public officials will have a hard time trying to obtain the compensation in courts: it is difficult to make the expert’s study, which would prove that the companies caused the rivers’ overflow, when a whole year has passed. However, there are examples of similar claims to companies. For example, in March of 2012 the ecology prosecutor’s office went to the court of Omsk claiming to exact 940 million roubles from Transsibneft (Transneft subsidiary) for the consequences of the accident, which happened 19 years before: 25000 square meters of oil was spilled near the town of Tyret, depriving the local residents of the source of fresh water. The authorities had to supply drinking water to the town from the neighboring district at the account of the budget.

For more details see the printed version of the newspaper dated May 30, 2012 (No. 98(3112).