Mines, wrecks, fishing areas and seal habitats along pipeline route

Fishermen in Gulf of Finland worried about possible trawling restrictions

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The sea bottom of the route of the planned natural gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea is littered with wartime mines and sunken ships. There are also fishing areas and habitats for seals in the area.
      In a report by Nord Stream, the company set up to put the pipeline into place, the environmental hazards are evaluated as moderate, local, and temporary, mainly affecting the time of installation.
      There would be some permanent problems for fishing, as restrictions would have to be put in place for bottom trawling.
     
“The livelihood of fishermen, especially those with trawlers, would be made more difficult where the pipeline is located”, says Seppo Partanen, a member of the executive of the Finnish Association of Professional Fishermen. “We are the only group in the Gulf of Finland who will be clearly hurt by the pipeline.”
      Partanen himself would be affected significantly, as he trawls Baltic herring and sprat in the entire Baltic Sea, all the way to the Danish island of Bornholm.
      In the Gulf of Finland, a problem is posed by ridges and trenches, over which the gas pipes would be laid “as if they were arched bridges over the valleys of the sea bottom”. The risk is that fishing equipment might get stuck on the pipes and break.
     
The bottom of the Gulf of Finland would be disturbed by the laying of the pipeline, as well as the anchors of the vessels used in the work, and the detonation of old sea mines.
      Thousands of mines and other munitions were deployed and dumped in the Gulf of Finland during the wars between 1939 and 1944, and many of them are still there.
      Nord Stream plans to detonate the mines on the sea bottom. Commander Kari Aapro of the Ministry of Defence says that the activity amounts to normal mine clearing, which Finland will not be involved in.
      “Our resources in the task are limited, and the Navy concentrates on clearing the mines from inside Finnish territorial waters. The gas pipeline project is a purely private activity”, Aapro says.
     
According to Nord Stream spokesman Sebastian Sass, a company specialised in mine clearance will be chosen in cooperation with officials.
      “Environmental issues will diligently be taken into consideration in connection with the elimination of the munitions”, Sass emphasises.
      “Before the detonations, we will send warning sounds which will frighten seals away. There will be no explosions during bird nesting times, and the movements of schools of fish will be monitored.”
     
There are seal areas especially in the eastern Gulf of Finland. Seals mate on the edge of the ice cover and the pups are born on the ice.
      Sass says that the scheduling of the work will take the seals’ mating times and birds’ nesting times into consideration. “The pipeline will not be built in the eastern Gulf of Finland in the winter when there is ice.”
      Anita Mäkinen, maritime expert of WWF Finland, says that not working on the pipeline in wintertime is a good idea. “Then there would not be as much harm to the seals. However, the noise and the pressure effects from the detonation of munitions would still be a rather severe disturbance to sea mammals”, Mäkinen says.
     
The primary routing planned by Nord Stream would pass north the Russian island of Suursaari, right alongside the National Park of the Eastern Gulf of Finland.
      Sass insists that nutrients on the sea bottom would not drift into Finnish waters. “Filling with rocks is planned there, which means that the bottom would not be manipulated.”
      The aim is to build stone reefs to support the pipeline. About 320,000 cubic metres of rock would be placed on the sea bottom in Finnish territory.
     
The reason given for routing the pipeline north of Suursaari is that it is better for the environment.
      “There are more birds, seals, fishing, and shipwrecks on the southern route. In addition, the pipeline route would go right through a protected area planned for the south side of Suursaari”, Sass explains.
      The project for an Ingrian Nature Park south of Suursaari has moved forward slowly through Russia’s decision-making bodies, but a couple of weeks ago a decision was made to set up the park this year.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Assessment: limited impact of gas pipeline on Baltic Sea (10.3.2009)
  Environmental assessment of proposed undersea gas pipeline to be assessed by adjacent countries (27.1.2009)
  Old sea mines to be detonated to make way for Baltic Sea gas pipeline (25.11.2008)
  Russian journalist: gas pipeline´s damaging environmental effects underestimated (15.4.2008)

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