Nord Stream: Not Just a Pipeline

6 Fourth Perspective: ‘A Threat to the Baltic Sea
Environment’
The Russo-German pipeline … will become an immediate threat to
the Baltic Sea … Whilst laying the pipeline, the Russo-German
consortium will stir up poisonous bottom sediments and … they
will have to remove all kinds of remnants [scrap] that has been
laying quietly at the bottom since the Second World War,
remnants that are filled with lethal substances: thousands of
undetonated mines, great amounts of dumped munitions and
chemical weapons. In other words: All the things that the
environmental experts are telling us not to do, [Nord Stream] will
be doing, and thereby create an immediate threat to the Baltic Sea.
(Wahlbäck 2006).
This statement by the former Swedish ambassador elucidates the environmental
concern that rapidly spread across the Baltic Sea region from 2006
on. Following Nord Stream AG’s preparation and distribution of the
Project Information Document to Affected Parties, as part of the
Espoo/EIA procedure, several issues related to the Baltic Sea environment
were raised by different actors in the littoral states. Most of the
concern stemmed from the nature of the Baltic Sea itself, which is widely
known as ‘one of the most seriously polluted marine environments in the
world’ (Westing 1989: 9), and several prominent politicians and accredited
personalities in the region were early voicing their unease regarding
the project (Halonen 2008; New Europe 2008; SvD 2006b). For instance,
Endel Lippmaa, chairman of the Council for Energy at the Estonian
Academy of Sciences, claimed that ‘if the entire gas [sic] that is inside
the pipe detonated, the total explosive force would equal that of about 50
Hiroshima bombs’ (Baltic Times 2007). Pipeline proponents, on the other
hand, argued that the whole environmental debate was being politicised
and that the potential impact of the pipeline was being exaggerated. In
this chapter it will be assessed to what extent the different arguments
used by the two sides hold.
6.1 The Baltic Sea: Not Like Other Seas
From an international and ecological point of view, the Baltic Sea is quite
special. Measuring some 415,000 km 2 , this semi-enclosed sea is the
world’s largest body of brackish water, and with an average depth of only
52 metres it is also among the shallowest seas of the world. If the Nord
Stream pipeline is constructed, it will thus be the shallowest (and longest)
dual sub-sea pipeline worldwide. Since the only connection with the
North Sea and the Atlantic is through the narrow Danish Straits (see
Figure 5), the Baltic Sea has a very slow water turnover rate. It takes
about eight years to replace 50% of the water, and some 30 years for all
the water to be replaced, but the replacement water is not necessarily
clean. This means that any waste discharge from littoral states, of which
there is plenty, will remain in the water for a long time. The generally
low water temperatures also contribute to a slow rate of decomposition of
pollutants introduced in the water (Westing 1989: 9; MoE Finland 2008).
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