Estonia's Environment Ministry hosted a group of experts March 1-2 from the Helsinki Commission, an organization in which nine nations and the European Union aim to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea region. They were visiting Estonia to assess the state of 10 hot spots in the country marked and listed in 1992 along with 122 others in a framework document of the Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action Program.
The Council of the Prime Ministers of the Baltic Sea States initiated the program 11 years ago.
According to the Helsinki Commission, most of the hot spots are areas or sites of high pollutant emissions or discharges. The places were selected with regard to the impact of the pollution on the environment, health, the finances and size of the polluter, and the cost-efficiency of the rehabilitation process.
A hot spot can also be located away from the coast if it is seriously affecting the ecosystem of the Baltic Sea, explained Gote Svenson, head of the working group of the Helsinki Commission that visited Estonia last week.
Svenson said that he hates to make comparisons, but that the Baltic states are at the forefront of implementing the environmental action program.
"We think their (Estonia's, Latvia's and Lithuania's) performance is excellent," said Svenson.
Out of the total of 132 hot spots, 99 are located in the territories of countries in transition, 12 in Sweden, 10 in Finland, nine in Germany and three in Denmark. The commission estimated in 1999 that it would take 7.35 billion ECUs to fix all the critical areas.
The money is coming mainly from domestic sources. "Estonia, donor countries and international financial institutions spent over 700 million kroons ($41.9 million) on minimizing the pollution from local hot spots," said Marko Tuumann, an official at the Environment Ministry. Mieczyslav Ostojsky, the secretary general of the Helsinki Commission, said that national governments participating in the action program play the major role.
Tuumann added that the recommendations of the Helsinki Commission on the treatment of industrial and municipal waste water are being successfully integrated into Estonian legislation.
"Pollution from organic materials was reduced by 60 percent between 1992 and 1999," he said.
Maps of the Baltic Sea's drainage area used by the commission are alive with red dots, squares and triangles; red marks hot spots where work is continuing in an effort to delist them.
For example, the region of the Gulf of Riga and the Daugava River basin comprises 15 hot spots located in both Estonia and Latvia; in most cases, municipal and industrial waste water is the source of pollution.
Harry Liiv, the vice chancellor of the ministry, said the program is planned for completion by 2013. "Our current headaches are Narva's oil shale power plants, the Kehra pulp and paper plant and a waste water treatment complex in Kohtla-Jarve," he said.
Arvo Tordik from the environmental protection department of the power plant at Narva, one of the major sources of pollution in Estonia, said his company is planning to renovate some of the equipment and close several industrial waste storage sites.
"After this we will have to change the system of transporting the solid waste (the ashes remaining after burning) and the whole project of making power production totally environment friendly will cost up to 5 billion kroons ($299 million)," said Tordik.
Tordik admitted that the Narva power plants badly pollute the atmosphere, because the amount of solid waste after burning the oil shale fuel makes up 50 percent of the fuel burnt.
The Narva Power Plant company paid 124 million kroons as pollution tax last year. The sum is likely to grow significantly in the future.
The government has allowed the company, which is the largest producer of electric energy in Estonia, to invest the money to be paid as pollution tax into trying to reduce pollution levels. The enterprise will spend 100 million kroons ($5.88 million) on upgrading of the electrical filters of the power generating blocs.
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