The discharged substances were similar to black oil, run from
the pipe belongs to Vodokanal of St. Petersburg on the Arsenal's
embankment close to Liteyny's Bridge. The oil was discharged
during the whole day. Due to rough estimations not less than 1 ton
of oil products have been dumped into Neva river.
The city agency for oil spills clean up worked until very late
at night with special boats and technology. They collected at
least 1,5 tons of oil mixed water. But Greenpeace has found out
that a big part of oil went to the river sediments, and this will
lead to future contamination of Neva river waters for next years.
Today at 10 in the morning Greenpeace experts went to check out the
place, and found out that the pollution has gone down by the
river's course, and can be seen from Sampsonievsky Bridge.
In the River Ijora, Greenpeace activists found a big
accumulation of white foam, which indicates the surfactants
discharge to the river. And there's a big probability that these
pollutants come from inside the Ijorsky's Factory territory.
Another chemical spill took place in the River Monastirka, just
in front of Aleksander Nevsky's Monastery. Yesterday, through the
pipe, which usually doesn't work a very high stream of synthetic
smelled waters were discharged. In about 30 m. upstream a water
shell with a 1m diameter was found. This was an indication that not
yet investigated industry in the area used a big amount of water
for probably some cleaning of their tanks next to the embankment.
Probably, the waste waters comes from the Polzunov Institute for
turbines and boilers.
During the last days, Greenpeace volunteers from Finland also
took part in the Water patrol. They were surprised that such
situation is common for St. Petersburg. "I expected to see
something like the actual situation, but I didn't expect to see
such pollution. The discharges to St. Petersburg's rivers is also
a problem for all Finnish population, because this contamination
goes to the Baltic Sea. Finish Government were sponsoring some
projects for modern waste water treatment plants construction
here. But this investments doesn't seem to be effective. This is
a big problem, because the Baltic Sea is the most polluted in the
world", - said Greenpeace volunteer Antti Korhonen, who also works
in the Research Center for the Sea Ecology in The University of
Helsinki.
Today Greenpeace sent a letter with all the findings to the
local environmental protection authorities, demanding a deep
investigation and punishment to the bodies responsible for this
threat to St. Petersburg's rivers.
Notes to the Editor
Illegal discharges of oil and other hazardous substances is
very common in St. Petersburg. According to the regional
environmental authority, the frequency of illegal discharges is
increasing year by year. For instance, in 2008 they registered 85
such cases. Even if the investigation of responsibles for the
contamination isn't so hard, the real problem is the sluggishness
of the authorities in charge of controlling.
Oil and oil products are very dangerous for human beings,
affecting the circulatory system and the nervous system, and even
causing cancer.