Pekkarinen still wants Vuotos reservoir built - eventually

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Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre Party) has reiterated his support for the construction of a proposed reservoir in Vuotos in Finnish Lapland.
     When receiving the final report of a working group on Finnish Lapland on Friday, Pekkarinen said that while he still supports the construction of the reservoir, he is willing to leave the project outside the upcoming reform to water legislation.
     Preparations for the legislation are taking place at the Ministry of Justice, where Minister of Justice Tuija Brax (Green) emphasises that current legislation does not allow the construction of Vuotos. Any move to build the reservoir during the present government term would require the unanimous consent of the government parties.
     Pekkarinen acknowledges that Vuotos cannot be built without rewriting water management legislation.
     
The Lapland group headed by MP Hannes Manninen (Centre) proposes the replacement of the protected Kemihaara swamps that would be submerged by the proposed reservoir with some other wetland.
     Construction of the reservoir was blocked by a decision by the Supreme Administrative Court, in which the protection of Kemihaara was seen as tantamount.
      Manninen spoke of a “new type of construction”, adding that “the Vuotos project in its traditional meaning should not be proposed”.
     He did not specify what this new type of construction might involve.
     In Pekkarinen’s view, the question of protecting the Kemihaara swamps needs to be clarified “with future Parliamentary terms in mind”.
     
Minister of Labour Tarja Cronberg (Green) feels that companies based in Finnish Lapland should turn away from Vuotos and look toward Kirkenes in the north of Norway which, she says, will have the centre of the “strongest economic development in Europe over the coming 20 years.”
     She finds that attempts to dismantle court decisions not to allow construction at Vuotos to be “incomprehensible”.
     When asked why so much ammunition has been wasted on Vuotos for decades, Manninen blamed the media.
     “You can write about other things, too.”


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Greens urged to put forward alternatives to Vuotos reservoir (22.2.2008)
  Centre Party call for reservoirs challenges government cohesion (21.2.2008)
  Supreme Administrative Court denies building permit for Vuotos reservoir (19.12.2002)

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