Govt offers to build tunnel to prevent Caspian pollution
By Seymur Aliyev
The Azerbaijani environment ministry has proposed to build a tunnel along the seaside park (boulevard) in the capital Baku designed to prevent the direct discharge of wastewater into the Caspian Sea, Minister Huseyn Bagirov told reporters on Wednesday.
"During its monitoring the Ecology Ministry revealed the draining of wastewater into the Caspian in 14 locations along the boulevard. Most of them are not registered and pollute the environment," Bagirov said.
According to Bagirov, it would be expedient to build a tunnel on the part of the boulevard connected to the sea to transport waste from the shore out of the city. Conducting large-scale excavation work is often impossible as the communications are outdated, therefore, it is more appropriate to build new tunnels rather than to repair existing lines.
"Part of this water could be directed to water treatment facilities in Hovsan [settlement in Baku], while another part - to modern installations which can be constructed in a new sea port in Alat [settlement near Baku]. Rigs in Hovsan do not have sufficient capacity and we need to extend the tunnel to Alat," Bagirov said.
According to the minister, the tunnel will prevent direct discharge of waste from such a large city as Baku into the Caspian Sea. "This is the most effective way to solve the problem," he said.
The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources is discussing the construction of such a tunnel with relevant government agencies, he added.
Azerbaijan has undertaken solution of the resource-rich Caspian Sea's environmental problems. About $1 billion has been allocated from the state budget for restoration and purification of the Caspian's stretch along the densely populated Absheron Peninsula -- which encompasses the capital Baku and its surrounding regions, the head of the Department of Ecology and Nature Protection at the ministry, Rasim Sattarzade, told AzerNews earlier.
During a recent multimedia teleconference Baku-Moscow-Astana, dedicated to the 19th anniversary of the Tehran Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea, scholars from the coastal countries discussed the importance of resolute measures to prevent Caspian Sea pollution. Azerbaijan emphasized that the country has done extensive work on the modernization of existing and construction of new sewage treatment plants along the Caspian coast. Furthermore, a new wastewater treatment plant is under construction in Sumgayit, an industrial city located 30 km north of Baku.