Finland Times

 

File Picture of Baltic Sea. Photo - Lehtikuva

Five illegal discharges – two minor mineral oil spills, one of fish oil and two of palm oil – have been detected in the Baltic Sea, according to a report of Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), said a press release.

 

HELCOM, an intergovernmental organisation of the nine Baltic coastal countries and the EU that protects the marine environment from all sources of pollution, found the oil spills from ships during an intense aerial surveillance conducted non-stop over five days ending late Thursday night.

 

In 2012, the member states to HELCOM reported a total of 139 illegal discharges from ships observed by national surveillance planes in the sea during 5,090 flight hours.

 

Deliberate oil discharges from ships have been regularly observed with such flights since 1988.

 

The surveillance team recorded 122 incidents of discharge in 2011, the lowest ever, while the quantity of discharge was the lowest in 2012 when no spill was estimated to be larger than 3.3m.

 

‘The trend of decreasing spills in the Baltic Sea and nearby sea areas is encouraging. The continuous aerial surveillance of spills, a key area of HELCOM regional cooperation since 1980s, is an important contributing factor to this development,’ said HELCOM Professional Secretary Hermanni Backer, noting that ‘the whole Baltic region benefits from the fantastic efforts of the organiser, the German Havariekommando, as well as the participating states of this year’s HELCOM SuperCEPCO operation.’ 

 

The operation time of HELCOM’s SuperCEPCO 2013 was 74 hours involving 26 missions. 

 

File Picture of Baltic Sea. Photo - Lehtikuva

The spills detected during the operation included certain minor leakages such as discharges from washing of cargo tanks of ships transporting palm oil considered legal when conditions meet the regulations of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

 

Six aircrafts from Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Holland, and Sweden took part in the inspection flights and the survey report confirms that both quantity and number of oil discharges have reduced significantly this year.

 

Several patrol vessels assisted the missions during the operation organised by the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies in Germany from the NATO airbase in Nordholz.

This year the Bonn agreement countries were also invited to participate in the survey and the route stretched from the English Channel to Northwest Denmark.