All the data collected by this patrol will go to appropriate
authorities and be immediately published on www.saveneva.ru.
The Water Patrol crew is going to collect samples, identify
illegal discharges and spills from industrial facilities and ships,
make rapid response to industrial accidents. All samples collected
will be sent to certified labs for analysis. For some of the
samples the crew will make a quick analysis of integrated
toxicity.
This is the third year of the Greenpeace water patrol work in
St. Petersburg. All Peterburgers are again invited to take part in
this activity. Every person can help Greenpeace in saving the Neva
from contamination by reporting to Greenpeace via an internet form
(available on the web page) about any spills, leakages or
discharges that people take notice of. After receiving a complaint
rapid reaction is guaranteed and Greenpeace will see that the
authorities be working to investigate the source and to put
appropriate fines on perpetrators.
Last two years were very successful for Greenpeace patrolling
the Neva. The Patrol results have pushed the authorities to
initiate numerous investigations against violators of the existing
water legislation. Data collected by Greenpeace showed high
contamination of waste waters discharged by different types of
industries through the municipal sewer system. After publishing
this data the city sewer system operator - Vodokanal of St.
Petersburg was held publicly liable for not cleaning up the
discharges. Vodokanal started an audit of all discharges in St.
Petersburg in order to prevent or even eliminate contamination of
the municipal sewage system by industrial chemicals.
Waste water treatment plants in St. Petersburg were not designed
to remove hazardous chemicals from the water. This is why it is
extremely important to prevent any discharges, leakages and
effluents of industrial waste waters into the municipal sewer
system. Greenpeace hopes that the city's polluters will look into
what they discharge and eliminate hazardous chemicals from their
waste waters in order to prevent any further contamination of the
Neva - the only water source for St. Petersburg.
Greenpeace is the only organization in St. Petersburg that
maintains real-time control over industrial discharges and
leakages. The past experience shows that state authorities have no
capacity for rapid reaction to industrial discharges, leakages and
accidents.
Notes to editors
Greenpeace is also going to monitor direct effluents of local
industry and waste water treatment plants for hazardous substances
like BFRs, heavy metals, phthalates, PCBs which has already been
identified in the Russian Refuse Report published by Greenpeace
Science Unit in 2008. These substances are highly toxic, can
accumulate in the tissues of living organisms and are very
persistent. Despite the fact that international community pays
great attention to such substances there is no such monitoring in
the Russian Federation. The Russian system of water monitoring
remains in 80s years of the 20th century. Probably because of this
Russia is not taking part in the Baltic sea monitoring of hazardous
substances organized by
Helcom.