Baltic States – CIS, Forum, Latvia, Transport

Arturs Graudins.

As LETA was informed by Defense Ministry's Press Department's senior expert Arturs Graudins, councilor to Defense Ministry's state secretary Ilona Ekmane and Coast Guard Commander Hermanis Cernovs will open the seminar.

Among the participants will be representatives from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Croatia and Latvia. Presentations will be delivered by lecturers from Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium, they will share their countries' experience collecting hazardous substances. Latvian Coast Guard Service's Environment Officer Ojars Gerke will share Latvia's experience in collecting hazardous substances both from the sea and on board in case of leakage.

Participants of the seminar will visit Ventspils Free Port administration to become acquainted with the procedure for eliminating accident results in Ventspils port. Later they will visit Ventspils oil and oil products transit company Ventbunkers to become acquainted with oil products containing sewage purification plants.

Graudins pointed out that Latvia has noteworthy experience dealing with elimination of accident results in the sea, especially after the emergency operations for the ship "Golden Sky" in 2007, which can be considered an example of how to collect dangerous substances in the sea.