Industrial Disaster and Microbial Life: The Politics of Bioremediation in Pollution Zones of Late Socialist Estonia

• In Event: Politics of Infrastructure across the Soviet/Post-Soviet Transition

Abstract

In the early morning of November 3rd 1988 a fire broke out underground in a
section of the oil shale mine “Estonia”, located in the eastern part of Soviet Estonia. After the
fire was extinguished, the sealed off section of the mine was filled with water now
contaminated with phenols, a chemical used to process oil shale. To eliminate this contamination, genetically engineered bacteria, developed by
scientists from Tartu University, were released directly into the water. This incident opens up an opportunity to assess the relationship between environmental
consciousness, technology and the oil shale mining industry in a late socialist world.
Considering that the period witnessed numerous environmental protests across the Soviet
Union and Soviet Estonia was no different, experiencing mass demonstrations in 1987
against phosphate mines, there was a heightened awareness developing towards incidents
with severe implications on the environment. This incident raises questions about the perceptions on the environmental
costs of oil shale mining among the different actors - industrialists, scientists and the activists
- and their conceptualizations of an environmentally sustainable response to the mining
disaster.

Author

• Anna Helena Liiv, U of Tartu (Estonia)