NordStream Pipeline Reached Germany

The gas pipeline is expected to start working in the fall of 2011. Estonia denied the permission for the pipeline to pass through it territorial waters.

The day has come; the works for the Nordstream gas conduit are starting to see their conclusion as part of the pipeline has already reached the coast of Germany.

The pipeline is the result of the cooperation between  Gazprom, E.ON Ruhrgas, BASF-Wintershall and Gasunie.

According to a press release published in the NordStream website  “From fall 2011, natural gas from the NordStream Pipeline will flow into the transfer station which is currently being built. There, it will first be purified and preheated to the right temperature. The quality, quantity and pressure of the natural gas will then be measured. By summer, over half of the line will already have been laid in the ground. The second pipeline string is scheduled to reach land in mid-July.”

The ground pipeline in Germany is 470-kilometer-long (OPAL) and it will transport the gas via Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg and Saxony to the Czech border near Olbernhau in the Erzgebirge Mountains.
The pipeline creates an alternative route that avoids the national territory of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, countries that have had gas problems and cuts from Russia.

And, as expectable, this information reopens the debate in Estonia. Because the question if the decision taken by the Estonian Parliament was right or wrong, whether Nord Stream was a chance to take or refuse is again in the air.

Last October, NordStream Gas project was considered as a threat for the environment by the Riigikogu.
And when the company submitted a request “to carry out geophysical and geotechnical research on the seabed off Estonia, including visual observations, drilling, and taking samples from the seabed and below it”, the answer they got was a categorical no.

In fact, national parliament made its position clear in a public statement: “Because the results of drilling work on the continental shelf will give information about Estonia’s natural resources and their possible use, the Estonian government has the right to reject the research application”

Estonian Parliament and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supported instead the “Amber Project”, that considered building a gas land pipeline to Europe via Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

“The impact has not been properly estimated”

The environmental reasons were and are also supported by the Estonian fund for Nature board member Juri-Ott Salm, as he has told yesterday to EstonianFreePress.

He referred to a complaint send to the European Commission in which it could be read that “the Finnish Food Safety Authority EVIRA warned about the impact of the pipeline on human health.

The impacts of the pipeline on human health and well-being are not assessed adequately. Sediments containing very toxic chemicals are remobilized during construction”.

In his opinion, “the environmental impact assessments of the NordStream gas pipeline have not been properly estimated and relevant scientific data have not been taken into account, therefore not following the precautionary principle”.

Mr Salm also has doubts about the security measures adopted. “Regarding toxins, there should have been proper impact assessments in order to estimate the risks from toxins and change the plan if needed. At the moment is important to carry out proper monitoring in order to alert if  toxin levels change”.

Estonian Fund for Nature is cooperating also with Estonian Green Movement and other associations, in order to alert the citizens about the possible impacts in the environment that the pipeline could have.