HELCOM announces the elimination of two Baltic pollution hot spots, approves a joint proposal to IMO

Saint-Petersburg, 3 December (HELCOM Information Service) – The Meeting of the Heads of Delegation of the HELCOM Member States ended here today with the announcement of a recovery of two major pollution hot spots in the Baltic Sea region.

The first one is the wastewater treatment plant in Kronstadt (westernmost suburb of St. Petersburg, located on the island of Kotlin in the Gulf of Finland). St. Petersburg’s water utility company “Vodokanal St. Petersburg” has upgraded the wastewater treatment technique resulting in a significant reduction of pollution inputs to the Baltic Sea. The second one is the Szczecin-Skolwin Paper Mill. It has ceased any production and has been closed down. With its elimination the whole industrial sector in the Polish westernmost city of Szczecin will be cleared out of major pollution sources.

Another recovered pollution hot spot, St. Petersburg’s Central Aeration Station, is expected to be taken off the list in spring 2010 when the complete annual series of discharge monitoring data will be available to HELCOM. According to experts, this wastewater treatment plant, one of the largest in Europe and the largest in the Baltic Sea region, has reached the discharge target of less than 0.5 milligram of phosphorus per litre one year ahead of HELCOM’s set deadline. It will drastically reduce the load of phosphorus to the Gulf of Finland and hence help curb eutrophication in the whole Baltic Sea region. The renovation project worth 58 million Euros was co-funded from both national and international sources, including a grant by the John Nurminen Foundation (Finland) for advanced phosphorus removal.

“Cleaning up the Baltic Sea’s single most significant pollution sources – the so-called Hot Spots - is one of the key tasks of HELCOM. The remedial actions at the pollution hot spots should be seen as a major step towards achieving the objective of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan to drastically reduce pollution and restore the good ecological status of the marine environment by 2021,” says Igor Maydanov, Chairman of HELCOM.

The Hot Spots List of the most significant point sources of pollution around the Baltic Sea was first drawn up under the HELCOM Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action Programme (JCP) in 1992. The hot spots were designated by an international group of scientists, engineers, environmental managers, financers and government representatives, according to practical economic considerations as well as the seriousness of their impact on the environment and human health. The JCP programme aims to facilitate the implementation of pollution reduction measures at the most polluted sites in the Baltic Sea catchment area. This programme, which should be completed by 2012 at the latest, specifies a series of actions to be undertaken at pollution hot spots. The most notorious hot spots are point sources such as municipal facilities and industrial plants; however, the programme also covers pollution from agricultural areas and rural settlements, as well as sensitive areas where special environmental measures are needed, such as coastal lagoons and wetlands. Certain hot spots have been split into sub-hot spots in order to facilitate their management and actions to reduce pollution.

“With the two latest recoveries, a total of 73 hot spots and sub-hot spots remain on the list of the Baltic Sea’s most significant pollution sources, following the deletion of 89 of the earlier identified 162 hot spots/sub-hot spots,” says Anne Christine Brusendorff, HELCOM’s Executive Secretary.

Alleviating pollution at hot spots involves considerable investments. In 1992, it was estimated that total funding of ECU 18 billion would be needed to finance the necessary measures at all the hot spots. Rough current estimates of the total clean up costs for the remaining hot spots amount to EUR 9-11 billion. Investments and remediation projects carried out at pollution hot spots around the Baltic Sea have contributed substantially towards overall pollution load reductions in the Baltic Sea catchment area. Water quality in many coastal waters of the Baltic Sea has improved considerably since 1992, reflecting welcome progress in the treatment of municipal and industrial wastewater. 

The Meeting of the HELCOM Heads of Delegation in Saint-Petersburg also approved a joint proposal to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to designate the Baltic Sea as a special area for discharges of sewage from passenger ships. The proposal includes amendments to Annex IV of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL 73/78) to ban the discharge of sewage from passenger ships and ferries in the Baltic Sea unless it has been sufficiently treated to remove nutrients or delivered to port reception facilities. Excessive inputs of nutrients are the cause behind the biggest environmental problem of the Baltic Sea, which is eutrophication. The nutrient pollution loads originating from wastewater discharges from ships, even though rather small in terms of quantities, are not negligible due to being released directly to the open sea environment prone to algal blooms. The joint proposal will be submitted to the 60th session of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee taking place on 22-26 March 2010.

Note to Editors:

The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, usually referred to as the Helsinki Commission, or HELCOM, is an intergovernmental organisation of all the nine Baltic Sea countries and the EU which works to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution. 

HELCOM is the governing body of the "Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area," known as the Helsinki Convention.

For more information, please contact:

Mr. Nikolay Vlasov

Information Secretary

HELCOM

Tel: +358 (0)207 412 635

Fax: +358 (0)207 412 639

E-mail: nikolay.vlasov@helcom.fi