The Amur River: under the threat of death

Most Russians are acquainted with the Amur River only on the old song: "On the high banks of the Amur clock watch the homeland!" And even then mostly people of the older generation. Young people at best heard that somewhere there, far away, whether in Siberia, or if it is not clear where, there seems to be such a river. Meanwhile, the Amur River is one of the largest waterways not only in Russia, but also in the world. The area of the Amur basin, for example, is 1,855,000 square kilometers. This is the fourth place in Russia and the tenth in the world. Fifty-four percent of the basin area is located in Russia. Many other rivers, whose names are much more "untwisted", have a much smaller catchment area. The length of the river is almost three thousand kilometers. The greatest width is five kilometers, and the depth is fifty-six meters!

The sources of power of the Amur River are filled with water mainly during monsoon rains. Meltwater in the balance of the Amur is only twenty-five percent of the runoff. Due to the peculiarities of the hydro balance, the Amur River has two highs - summer and autumn. During the summer, the river rises by three to four meters, and in the autumn it is much larger - to fifteen meters. At this time, the Amur River can be spread out to twenty kilometers!

Amur is a habitat for valuable commercial fish. Here, a large number of fish are found as salmonids - pink salmon, chum salmon, and sturgeon - kaluga and sea sturgeon. And the fish is not just a lot, but very much, as in any Far Eastern or northern river.

But in recent years there has been a problem that can significantly reduce the fish stock, and even cause a lot of harm to a person. This is a violation of the ecological balance in the Amur basin. Environmental problems of the Amur River have already caused close attention to it by ecologists of the three countries located in its basin - Russia, China and Mongolia.

The problem was especially acute in the nineties, when in Russia, for understandable reasons, environmental control had almost nothing to control, and the rapidly developing China was not up to the problems of the northern river. But common sense, fortunately, still prevailed. If in the late nineties, even the meat of Amur fish, because of the large content of harmful substances, had a peculiar "pharmacy" smell, then in six to seven years the situation improved. And although the Chinese industry is still developing at a rapid pace, discharges to the river of harmful substances have ceased. Now the environmentalists are more concerned about the activities of agricultural enterprises of our southern neighbor.

The Chinese, in pursuit of yields, use a large number of chemicals, including those that are banned for import and use on the territory of Russia. Spring and floodwater fertilizer washed off the fields in the Amur. But the river is common!

Despite some improvement, the Amur River continues to be a headache for ecologists and residents of the Far Eastern region. Everyone remembers the case when in 2005, due to an accident at a Chinese chemical plant, a large amount of nitrobenzene and nitrobenzene was washed into the river. A giant poisonous spot moved down the Sungari River - one of the tributaries of the Amur River. A few days later the spot reached Amur, and a month later Khabarovsk. In the summer of 2008, locals found an oil slick on the Amur. The origin of it was never established.