The Court of Buryatia’s Barguzin District resolved to create terminals for collection of vessel-discharged bilge (oil-containing) water in Lake Baikal area. This task is delegated to Yenissey Basin Branch of the Federal Agency for Water Resources.
As reported by Oil and Gas information Agency with a reference to the Prosecutor’s Office of Buryatia, these measures are necessitated by the fact that the Baikal vessel traffic represented by various ships is growing from year to year. Over two thousand ships, on average, cruise the lake annually, provided each of them generates sludge (bilge water) containing petrochemicals and solid particles.
According to Limnological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, vessels sailing in the Baikal “produce” about 420 tons of oily wastewater per navigation period. Currently there is just one vessel for comprehensive treatment of contaminated water, which is based in Baikal settlement of Irkutsk Region. In the period of 2014 – 2015 it took in 12.2 tons of bilge water for further treatment and recycling.
Concurrently Irkustk Region Authorities considered creating a vessel for treatment of bilge water. That was mentioned by Sergey Levchenko, Head of the Region, at Interfax press-conference: “The number of vessels (…) is growing. Consequently we need to supply them with fuel and to provide a facility for collection and treatment of bilge water. At present we are considering construction of a special-purpose vessel, which will do this job”.
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