Northern fleet wreck will be removed

The Minister of Fisheries and Coastal affairs, Helga Pedersen (photo), says in a press release that the Norwegian Government is taking local worries about the wreck seriously. In the last two weeks, the minister has been under hard pressure in order to do something with the wreck of the old Russian naval vessels, which ended its days in the rocks outside the coast of Finnmark in December 1994. Both the local population and Norwegian environmentalists have raised questions about environmental problems related to the wreck. Among more, potential leakages of PCB and heavy metals, are some of the worries from the locals. The minister says to the NRK TV-news Wednesday that its important for the Norwegian government to make sure that the locals should not have to worry about potential environmental hazards from the old vessel. Minister Helga Pedersen was county governor in Finnmark before she was asked by the Prime Minister to join the government. The Radiation Protection Authority and the Coastal Administration have checked the ship for radioactivity and the Marine Research Institute has taken samples of the seabed, of fish and mussels, to see if they might contain PCB, heavy metals or other toxic materials, writes Aftenposten. After 14 years denying that the wreck represented a danger, Norwegian authorities decided last week to check the Murmansk again immediately.