Five illegal discharges of oil detected during the CEPCO North aerial surveillance flights over the Baltic Sea

Five illegal discharges of oil were detected during CEPCO (Coordinated Extended Pollution Control Operation) North 2004 aerial surveillance flights, which took place on 1-3 June over the Western part of the Gulf of Finland and Northeastern parts of the Baltic Sea.

Four aircraft from Estonia, Finland and Sweden have for more than 27 hours continuously surveyed the agreed route for oil pollution. The base airport for CEPCO North flights this year was the Turku airport, Finnish Frontier Guard’s apron. Remote sensing equipment, such as side looking radars (SLAR), infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) cameras, were used during the operation.

Two of the five spills were considered of a large scale: one has been evaluated to contain over 30 cubic meters, another at least 1.5 cubic meter of oil. Three have been recognized to contain only minor amounts of oil. Due to heavy ship traffic in the area no suspects have been identified so far.

Despite the large amount of spilled oil detected during the flights, the number of illegal discharges was smaller compared to a similar operation carried out in the same area in 2000 when nine illegal oil discharges were detected.

Contacts

HELCOM Secretariat

Mr Nikolay Vlasov
Information Secretary
Tel: +358 9 6220 2235
Fax: +358 9 6220 2239

Mr Tadas Navickas
Professional Secretary
Tel: +358 9 6220 2242
Fax: +358 9 6220 2239

Notes for the editor

Two CEPCO (Coordinated Extended Pollution Control Operation) flights are arranged annually. During CEPCO flights several HELCOM countries jointly carry out continuous aerial surveillance activities for 24 hours of more along the prefixed flight patterns with high likelihood of operational spills. CEPCO flights are also intended to support national aerial surveillance data by detecting also those illegal discharges which would not be disclosed by regular national surveillance activities and thus get a realistic estimation of the total number of oil spills discharged to Baltic Sea during one randomly selected day.