Ecotox warns of critical fish mortality

Participants in a two-day workshop on March 28 and 29 as part of the Ecolex project warned of high contamination level in the whole Caspian Saturday.

The attendees outlined three hotbeds of pollution, wide scale oil contamination in the area of Absheron Peninsula, pollution with organic chloride in the central part of the Iranian sector and the delta of the river Ural in Kazakhstan.

Over 30,000 seals died in the Sea in 2000 and 2001 respectively, including 6,000 on the Azeri shores in 2000 and 5,000 last year, according to an Azeri expert in the project. In Iran, close to dead 100 seals were flown to the shore.

Listed as culprits for seal extinction, in addition to plague and poaching, were oil and other harmful substances.

Poisoning of sturgeons with various chemicals could adversely affect human health, Kazakh representative Igor Mitrofanov said.

The Ecolex project funded by the Japanese Trust Foundation via the World Bank has been underway since the summer of 1999 and is expected to complete this year. The project costs some $1 million, its executive David Obrey said.*