HELCOM getting ready for the Moscow Ministerial Meeting

Helsinki, 27 November (HELCOM Information Service) - The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM) will convene its 29th Meeting of the Heads of Delegation of the Member States on 2-3 December in Saint-Petersburg to review the activities of all HELCOM Subsidiary Groups, and to discuss working programmes, intersessional work and ongoing projects.

The preparations for the Moscow Ministerial Meeting in May will be a key part of the agenda. The 2010 HELCOM Ministerial Meeting is considered a landmark event that will catalyze national commitments and launch full-scale actions towards the restoration of the Baltic marine environment. In Moscow, the HELCOM Member States will present their National Implementation Programmes to achieve the objectives of the overarching HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan to radically reduce pollution to the marine environment and restore its good ecological status by 2021.

 “The Heads of Delegation will discuss common templates for presenting national programmes for the implementation of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, as well as ways for further assessing the efficiency of the identified priority measures”, says Anne Christine Brusendorff, HELCOM’s Executive Secretary. “Additionally, representatives of the HELCOM countries will draft the official programme of the upcoming Ministerial Meeting in Moscow as well as prioritize topics for the ministerial decisions”.

The Meeting of the Heads of Delegation in Saint-Petersburg will rubber-stamp 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.

The representatives of the coastal countries are expected to approve the deletion of two major pollution hot spots from the HELCOM list of the Baltic Sea’s most significant pollution sources. 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.

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.

Additionally, the representatives of the coastal countries are expected to approve the list of “red” and “black” chemicals from offshore platforms, discharge of which is regulated by the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. The Meeting will also consider the latest information on the status of the development of an ecologically coherence network of well-managed marine protected areas.

The Meeting of the Heads of Delegation will be conducted by the Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Mr. Igor Maydanov.

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