Volunteers discovered a layer of fuel oil under rocks near the village of Volna.

Volunteers reported that a layer of fuel oil was discovered under rocks near the port of Taman. They questioned the veracity of scientists' data that the summer of 2025 saw one of the lowest levels of oil pollution in the Black Sea in the past 18 years.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," in Anapa on October 29, point emissions of fuel oil were detected only on the "Vysoky Bereg" beach, the task force stated. In the Kerch Strait, approximately six kilometers of the coastline are contaminated with fresh emissions, volunteers reported the same day. On October 31, new fuel oil emissions were recorded on the coast in the Temryuk district of the Krasnodar Territory. Authorities called the emissions "point emissions," while volunteers call them significant. On November 1, the emergency response team also reported minor fuel oil spills in Anapa and the Temryuk district.

Volunteers from the Dolphins headquarters discovered a layer of fuel oil under rocks on the coast near the village of Volna, not far from the port of Taman, according to a video published today on the headquarters' Telegram channel. They noted that the layer of fuel oil was liquid and had a pungent odor. "A clean outer surface does not guarantee absolute cleanliness underneath," the volunteers concluded, announcing that cleanup work was underway.

The headquarters noted a study that found that this year's oil pollution in the Black Sea was one of the lowest in the past 18 years. This is the conclusion reached by scientists from the Southern Federal University and the Hydrochemical Institute of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring.

According to the study report posted on the Southern Federal University website, from 2007 to 2025, researchers collected and analyzed 275 seawater samples and 190 samples of oil clots and films from the coast of the Kerch Strait, Anapa, and Novorossiysk districts.

Peaks in pollution, many times higher than the norm, were expectedly recorded immediately after the tanker accidents, the scientists summarized.

“High HC (hydrocarbon) contents, several times exceeding the MAC (maximum permissible concentration), were expectedly recorded in the areas of emergency fuel oil spills in the first weeks after the shipwrecks (December 2007, January 2025), as well as for two to three weeks after the accidents. "The warm seasons that followed the 2007 disaster could have caused this effect by the summer intensification of fuel oil degradation, numerous traces of which, despite cleanup efforts, remained in a number of coastal areas inaccessible to equipment," Andrey Kuznetsov, Director of the SFedU Institute of Earth Sciences, is quoted in the publication.

Scientists attribute the fact that the summer of 2025 saw one of the lowest pollution levels in the 18 years of observations to several factors. "Firstly, the cleanup work on the resort Anapa bay-bar in 2024-2025 was much larger-scale than in the little-developed Kerch Strait in 2007-2008. Secondly, the difference in coastal landscapes played a role. The sand of the Anapa bay-bar acted as an 'anchor' and 'filter', holding the clumps of fuel oil and preventing them from freely migrating back into the water, unlike the rocky shores of the Kerch Strait, where the fuel oil remained on the surface for years," the report stated.

"For the coastal waters of the northeastern coast of the Black Sea, which have been subject to chronic oil pollution for many years, the accidental spills of fuel oil containing few water-soluble components that occurred in 2007 and 2024 did not lead to a sharp increase in hydrocarbon concentrations compared to the background level established over two decades," Andrey noted. Kuznetsov.

Meanwhile, according to researchers, the persistence of relatively "fresh" fuel oil, mixed with sand and having lost buoyancy, on the surface and underwater surfaces of beaches and within them, as well as on rocky cliff faces, wave-breaking terraces, and coastal protection structures, poses a threat of secondary pollution of seawater by decay products for the next two to three years, the scientists concluded.

Volunteers questioned the reliability of the pollution level data. "What do we see on the shore today? Fuel oil in algae. Daily small emissions spread over tens of kilometers. Pollution of beaches in the Volna and Tuzla areas. And dozens of bags of waste that we collect by hand. The question isn't whether reality contradicts scientific data. The question is: what exactly is being measured, where, and how? Because a 'clean water sample in Anapa' and dried fuel oil on a rock in Tuzla are two different realities," the volunteers pointed out.

In August, satellite images showed that the Black Sea's pollution with fuel oil from sunken tankers continues. Most of the fuel oil settled to the seabed, including in the areas of Taman, Anapa, and the Bugay Spit, the scientists concluded.

On December 15, 2024, two tankers carrying fuel oil sank in the Kerch Strait. A crew member of one of the tankers died as a result. In addition, an oil spill occurred, leading to catastrophic environmental consequences, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "Fuel Oil Spill in the Kerch Strait".

Materials on the consequences of the fuel oil spill have been collected by the "Caucasian Knot" on the page "Eco-disaster in Kuban".