AZERBIJIAN / OIL PRODUCTION (07:42)

4 July 2009

AZERBIJIAN / OIL PRODUCTION (07:42)

Oil has become the economic lifeblood for Azerbaijan -- a country on the Caspian Sea. Its oil boom is one of the longest in history, stretching back 150 years. But the industry has left a deadly legacy. UNTV

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Full Script

STORY: AZERBAIJAN / OIL POLLUTION
TRT: 7.42
SOURCE: 21ST CENTURY / AZ TV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN / AZERI / NATS

DATELINE: JULY, AUGUST 2008, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN

SHOTLIST:

JUNE 2008, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN

1. Various shots, Baku city

FILE – AZ TV - BLACK AND WHITE ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE

2. Various shots, Baku

JUNE 2008, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN

3. Various shots, traffic
4. Various shots, city scenes
5. Tilt up, oil industry from city
6. Various shots, oil rigs, 
7. Various shots, deserted oil factory
8. Wide shot, pool of oil
9. Various shots, abandoned concrete structures
10. Various shots, Huseinov conducting a radioactivity measurement
11. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Agababa Huseinov, engineer:
“The main accumulation is located over there. Here the entire territory is contaminated with radioactive charcoal”
12. Various shots, woman and child
13. Wide shot, apartment building in contaminated area
14. Med shot, women arguing and yelling
15. SOUNDBITE (Azeri) Woman, local resident:
 “How many times can you come and check on people? We’re surrounded by toxins. All of us are sick.”
16. Various shots, Huseinov talking with women
17. SOUNDBITE (Azeri) Woman, local resident:
We have been here for 15 years. What is the use of your visit here? We will not allow you in again.”
18. Various shots, Huseinov measuring radioactivity measurement
19. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Agababa Huseinov, engineer:
“In Baku we have 300 windy days. The wind spreads charcoal which contains dissolved radium.”
20. Tilt up, various hospital beds with babies sleeping
21. Various shots, women with babies in hospital 
22. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Rasin Sattarzada, head of Environmental Policy with Azerbaijan’s Government:
“A polluted environment definitely causes problems with human health.”
23. Various shots, Sattarzada in his office 
24. Various shots, Baku houses and districts
25. Various shots, oil rigs and oil pools
26. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Rasin Sattarzada, head of Environmental Policy with Azerbaijan’s Government:
 “The city is surrounded by this polluted area, and this is something we need to tackle and to clean up.”
27. Various shots, oil production factory

FILE – AZ TV - BLACK AND WHITE ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE

28. Various shots, archival footage of oil production

JUNE 2008, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN

29. Various shots, slush removal, bulldozing 
30. Various shots, men watering trees
31. Various shots, contaminated lakes

FILE – AZ TV - ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE

32. Various shots, people on beach,
33. Med shot, no swimming sign
34. Med shot, sewage discharge

JUNE 2008, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN

35. SOUNDBITE (Azeri) Ahmemed Memmedov Deputy Director, Azeri Water Treatment System:
“The water treatment plant doesn’t work at full capacity”
36. Wide shot, Memmedov at the bay measuring water contamination
37. SOUNDBITE (Azeri) Ahmemed Memmedov Deputy Director, Azeri Water Treatment System:
“The plant handles only half of the waste – the rest is discharged untreated – and that goes either into the sea or into the lakes which are all surrounded by human populations.”
38. Med shot, Memmedov pointing at map
39. Various shots, water examined in lab
40. Various shots, Caspian sea 
41. Various shots, construction of water treatment plant
42. Various shots, pipeline 
43. Med shot, child climbing on rod
44. Various shots, old plant with garbage
45. Various shots, oil contaminated water
46. Various shots, children and people and in Park 
47. Various shots, city scenes

STORYLINE:

Along the shore of the Caspian Sea lies Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.
The city has long had wealth and splendor as these old news reels from the Soviet era testify and today, in the town centre, signs of prosperity shoppers stroll in the streets screens advertise designer watches families play in the park. 
But there’s trouble looming on the horizon, quite literally.

At the city’s edges, towers and dereks rise in a dirty haze. Rigs crowd in on people’s homes.

The oil industry is the bedrock of Azerbaijan’s economy, but in Baku it’s created a great paradox - because oil – the very source of the city’s financial salvation – is putting the lives of its own citizens at risk.

This abandoned factory on the edge of Baku used to process by-products from the oil industry to create iodine.

It’s left behind heaps of charcoal pellets that are dangerously radio-active.
Agababa Huseinov, is an engineer. He’s here to measure the levels of radiation.

SOUNDBITE (Russian) Agababa Huseinov, engineer:
“The main accumulation is located over there. Here the entire territory is contaminated with radioactive charcoal”

Right in the middle of this contamination live a number of impoverished families, displaced by conflict in other parts of Azerbaijan… They’re all at high risk and when they spot Huseinov they are not at all happy.

SOUNDBITE (Azeri) Woman, local resident:
 “How many times can you come and check on people? We’re surrounded by toxins. All of us are sick.”

Huseinov can do little to calm the families’ anger.

SOUNDBITE (Azeri) Woman, local resident:
We have been here for 15 years. What is the use of your visit here? We will not allow you in again.”
Whether he can return or not, Mr Huseinov knows the effects of radiation have already spread well beyond the factory grounds.

SOUNDBITE (Russian) Agababa Huseinov, engineer:
“In Baku we have 300 windy days. The wind spreads charcoal which contains dissolved radium.”

Pollution caused by the oil industry is putting current and future generations in the area at risk – like these newborns in a clinic not far from the factory. Doctors report high levels of respiratory infections, TB, skin diseases, tumours and congenital abnormalities.

SOUNDBITE (Russian) Rasin Sattarzada, head of Environmental Policy with Azerbaijan’s Government:
“A polluted environment definitely causes problems with human health.”

Rasin Sattarzada is head of Environmental Policy with Azerbaijan’s Government – he’s not got an easy job, since the Absheron Peninsula where Baku is located is one of the most polluted areas on earth.

The impact isn’t only on people’s health – oil is also threatening to choke off Baku’s plans to expand. Big oil forms a noose of highly polluted districts around the city – in the very places where Baku needs to build to house its growing population.

SOUNDBITE (Russian) Rasin Sattarzada, head of Environmental Policy with Azerbaijan’s Government:
 “The city is surrounded by this polluted area, and this is something we need to tackle and to clean up.”

Oil pollution has a long history in Baku, where industrial extraction goes back 150 years.

For most of that period the health and safety of workers has come a distant second to the economic imperative to pump as much oil as possible.

At one time horses were put to work drawing oil from shallow wells sometimes people took the strain and the health impact on workers like this man must surely have been devastating.

Gradually, larger rigs and deeper wells massed around the city.

In a film from the 1930s an oil blow-out from a new drilling rig sets the stage for a “heroic” battle by the workers against an overwhelming tide of oil. They eventually return to celebrate victory in the city.

But the legacy of oil pollution lies heavily on Baku to this day. In response, Azerbaijan’s government has launched a major clean-up operation for the whole area and the World Bank is supporting this effort to the tune of $164 million.

In many parts of the city, diggers remove oil sludge.  Bulldozers clear rubble, debris and vast amounts of dumped garbage.

The authorities are reclaiming land and planting it with trees.

The lakes around Baku as well as the waters of the Caspian Sea have also suffered badly over the years. 
. 
People still swim along the city’s shore-line – but at their own, considerable risk – the sign says “No swimming” – and for good reason – sewage pipes are not far away.

SOUNDBITE (Azeri) Ahmemed Memmedov Deputy Director, Azeri Water Treatment System:
“The water treatment plant doesn’t work at full capacity”

Ahmemed Memmedov is Deputy Director of the Azeri Water Treatment System.

SOUNDBITE (Azeri) Ahmemed Memmedov Deputy Director, Azeri Water Treatment System:
“The plant handles only half of the waste – the rest is discharged untreated – and that goes either into the sea or into the lakes which are all surrounded by human populations.”

As a result, water from the lakes and bay in the Baku area is highly polluted with both oil and human waste – all too visible in this filthy water being tested in the lab.

The Caspian Sea itself has already seen its fish catch drastically reduced.

Now, a new water treatment plant… and a new pipeline to carry waste out of Baku’s lake area are under construction.

At long last there’s relief in sight for the families at the abandoned iodine factory.  The plant is soon to be cleared and cleaned, and they will be offered homes in another location.

No one underestimates the challenge of cleaning up a century and a half of oil pollution… but Baku finally has a chance of providing better protection for its citizens’ health – even as it reaps the economic rewards of oil.

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