Permafrost Melting Damaging Key Infrastructure in Russian North, ‘To Be Precise’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 4 – The accelerating melting of the permafrost which underlies two-thirds of the Russian Federation has already led to damages in up to 80 percent of the houses and other buildings there and put at risk “thousands of kilometers” of oil and gas pipelines on which Moscow relies, the To Be Precise portal says.

            But despite that, the Kremlin does not make any mention of this problem in its Arctic strategy document for the next decade. Instead, it treats global warming as something that will benefit Russia in general and the Russian North in particular (tochno.st/materials/kak-v-rossii-taet-vecnaia-merzlota-obieiasniaem-na-grafikax).

            Despite some regional and corporate efforts to correct the situation, the investigative portal continues, the problems arising from the ever more rapid melting of the permafrost layer are going to increase and the amount of money needed to respond to them is going to rise exponentially.

            More than 80 percent of the housing stock in the Russian North was build before 1999 and none of that made provision for the impact of the melting of the permafrost and the consequent shifting of foundations. Of the limited amount built since that time, only a small proportion has included special features to defend against permafrost melting.

            As a result, buildings in many places in the North are in trouble: 80 percent in Vorkuta, 55 percent in Magadan, 35 percent in Dikson, 22 percent in Tiksi, and nine to ten percent in Yakutsk and Norilsk. One estimate suggests that by 2050, Russia will have to spend seven trillion rubles to correct these problems in the cities there.

            More immediately worrisome is the way in which the melting of the permafrost is undermining pipelines and even rail lines in Western Siberia. The consequences of this trend are no so great that LukOil, for example, has refused to investigate potential new fields because they are in areas where the permafrost is melting especially quickly.

            But so far, as the new Arctic Strategy Document for the next decade makes clear, the Kremlin has taken refuge in the predictions of some that global warming will work to Russia’s advantage and that Moscow need not do anything special yet in response to what is happening in the northern half of the country.