Donskoy in Norway to discuss Nikel pollution
Russia’s Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergei Donskoy is in Norway to discuss the implementation of the agreement on the reconstruction of the Nickel-plants in Pechenga.
Donskoy participate at today’s Barents Environmental Ministers meeting in Tromsø. Norway took over the chairmanship of the Barents Working Group on Environment from Russia in 2007 and will hand it over to Sweden at the meeting in Tromsø on Wednesday.
But, as BarentsObserver reported last week, Norway’s Minister of Enviroment Erik Solheim does not participate at the meeting. Instead, State Secretary Heidi Sørensen is the head of the Norwegian delegation.
On Thursday, Sørensen and Donskoy will continue with bi-lateral talks in Oslo. According to a press-release posted at the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment the main issue on the agenda will be the implementation of the agreement on the reconstruction of Kola Mining and Metallurgical Company. Also, the two parties will discuss issues relating to the joint programs for cross-border monitoring of pollutants from the industrial plants in Nikel and Zapolyarny near the border to Norway.
A Norwegian financed monitoring station in Nikel was closed down in 2008. The monitoring station was supposed to be re-opened last autumn, but for technical reasons that did not happen.
With the aim to reduce the SO2-emission in the Norwegian-Russian border area, Norway has paid NOK 20,6 million (EUR 2,4 million) for the modernization of the new briquetting process in Zapolyarny. But, as BarentsObserver reported in September last year the new briquetting process is still not working.
It is said to be completed in early 2012, but the modernized plant will only improve the situation in Zapolyarny and not in the border area as a whole. Instead of being emitted from the briquetting process in Zapolyarny, the contained sulphur will be emitted as SO2 from the smelter in the neighboring town of Nikel. The smelting plant in Nikel uses the briquettes from the plant in Zapolyarny. Therefore, the emission in Nikel will increase with the same amount of SO2 as it will be reduced in Zapolyarny, as reported by BarentsObserver.
In December last year , the owners of Norilsk-Nickel informed Norwegian authorities that they will back out and not fulfill the agreement with the Nordic Investment Bank on improvement of the environmental impact from the smelter in Nikel.
