TBILISI: A strategic oil pipeline project under development represents a major environmental risk for one of the Caucasus’s most celebrated resorts and for a source of mineral water renowned throughout the former Soviet Union.

Work on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, linking the Caspian and Black seas, is just beginning in Azerbaijan, but by the time it is completed in 2005 it will cut a swathe through Georgia’s Borjomi valley, a beauty spot famous for its climate and its mountain scenery.

Six international non-governmental organizations, in a joint report, warned recently that the pipeline not only endangered the environment, with its permanent risk of leakage through accidents or deliberate attack, but was also likely to hit local tourism and employment.

Jacques Fleury, managing director of the Georgian Glass and Mineral Water company which operates the Borjomi spring, said that at least 7,000 tons of crude oil would spill into the valley in the event of a breach in the pipieline.

“Upstream the nearest pump is 75 kilometres away, and even if an alert were to be sounded immediately after an incident, it would still take 20 minutes for the pipeline to empty.

In addition to the customary technical risks, and the hazards of a pipeline passing through a region of high seismic activity, there is — in the view of Alexander Tvalshrelidze, hydro-geologist with the Georgian Academy of Sciences — the even greater risk of a terrorist attack.

Fleury believes this risk is “high,” noting that in Colombia, where “despite the 1,000 soldiers deployed to keep guard over oil pipelines, guerrillas carry out dozens of attacks a year.”

The head of the Georgian International Oil Corporation, Georgi Shanturia, charged by President Eduard Shevardnadze last month with ensuring the pipeline’s safety, said that the risk of attacks was “virtually zero.”

David Woodward, head of British Petroleum Azerbaijan which is the three-billion-dollar project’s main shareholder, stressed that “all necessary safety measures will be taken,” including satellite surveillance and regular patrols.

Fleury believed the pipeline’s itinerary should have taken it further south.

“This probably wasn’t possible for political reasons,” he said.

The project crosses sensitive political faultlines in the Caucasus and Turkey, and skirts the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey where a 15-year separatist rebellion only recently ended.

It also passes close to Armenia, which has not yet resolved a territorial conflict with Azerbaijan, and a human rights activist in London warned that the pipeline could “militarize a whole corridor running from the Caspian to the Mediterranean.”

A local expert speaking on condition of anonymity said the Azerbaijani and Georgian authorities had each made specific demands concerning the pipeline’s itinerary, based largely on geopolitical considerations.

Georgian Environment Minister Nino Chkhobadze said that the present itinerary was “not definitive.”

“I have asked for an independent report on the real risks that the BTC pipeline presents for Borjomi, and I will make my decision in the light of that,” she said.

The report is due to be delivered later this month.

Last month, more than 60 environmental and human rights groups meeting in London warned that the 1,100-mile (1,700-kms) subterranean pipeline could reignite regional conflicts.

The itinerary was largely chosen with strategic considerations in mind, particularly a wish to avoid Russia, Chechnya or Iran in bringing Caspian oil to world markets.

Meanwhile, diners throughout Russia and in many other former Soviet republics may have a last chance to enjoy Borjomi mineral water, carbonated and slightly salty, and renowned as an antidote for stomach pains or excessive consumption of alcohol.—AFP