BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

29/03/2007

Latvia struggles to contain oil spill in main river

The Associated Press

RIGA, Latvia: Latvia struggled to contain an oil spill in its central river, the Daugava, that occurred as a result of a pipeline rupture in Belarus, officials said Thursday.

Guntis Pukitis, the Environment Ministry's state secretary, said that oil was flowing into Latvia from Belarus. The spill now stretches 150 kilometers (90 miles) to Jekabpils in central Latvia, he said.

He added that Belarusian officials had informed the Latvian ministry that they had the origin of the spill - the Unecha-Ventspils oil products pipeline in northern Belarus - under control.

But as the Daugava is wide and the current is fast, workers are struggling to stretch the booms across the river, Pukitis said.

"The size of the spill is constantly fluctuating," he said. "The main concern is that the leakage will continue longer than we predicted initially."

A ruptured Russian-owned pipeline spilled about 100 metric tons (110 U.S. tons) of diesel oil into a northern Belarusian river on Friday but was only announced by authorities there on Monday.

Pukitis said a group of Latvian officials were going to Belarus to examine the spill.

"Belarus is cooperating - we believe that they did everything possible - but the exchange of information could have been better," Pukitis said.

The clean-up effort is now international, as Estonia has dispatched six volunteer workers and Sweden has sent booms that will be stretched across the Daugava, he said.

Source:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/29/news/EC-EU-GEN-Latvia-Oil-Spill.php