A Poisoned Village: The legacy of gas-and-oil industry in Western Kazakhstan

• In Event: Extractivism, Energy, and Environmental Justice

Abstract

In 1983–1984, peaceful nuclear explosions in Western Kazakhstan formed six cavities in salt domes known as LIRA facilities, for storage of gas condensate from the Karachaganak oil-and-gas field opened in 1979. Karachaganak Petroleum Operating, consisting of British Gas, Italy’s ENI, American Chevron and Russia’s LUKoil, has been fined by the government numerous times for violations of environmental safety standards and releasing excessive emissions of hydrogen sulphide. The Sanitary Protection Zone with a radius of 5000 metres around the Karachaganak Field was established in 2002 but in 2004 reduced to around 3000 metres, violating the Aarhus Convention. Berezovka was a small village located on the edge of the Karachaganak Field within the 5000 metres radius. The first settlement there was established during the Stolypin agrarian reform of 1906 mainly by settlers from Ukraine, on the banks of a small river in the once deserted Kazakh steppe – a place that survived the Civil War and famine, eventually disappeared due to the hazardous waste from an enterprise that fosters the economic development of the newly independent country. Prompted by concerns regarding chronic health problems arising from gas emissions, residents of Berezovka initiated efforts to be relocated to a safe place as early as the 2000s, and local environmental organisations, with the support of Crude Accountability, persistently advocated for urgent measures to address the issues. Finally, during 2015-2018, the villagers were relocated following a mass poisoning of children incident in 2014. As a precautionary measure, the houses in Berezovka were demolished to discourage individuals from returning. By tracing a story of a land that experienced constant human intervention, this paper explores how a certain territory becomes a place/matter of concern for different local, national and international actors, and focuses on the interconnected narratives of environmental and social exploitation, displacement and environmental activism.

Author

• Irina Fedorova, FAU Erlangen