Nord Stream Acknowledges Stakeholder Comments
May 7, 2009 | Zug | The Nord Stream project is subject to international conventions and the national legislation of countries, the waters of which the pipeline will traverse – Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. At present, the national permitting processes and the international consultations are going according to plan in the public participation phase as per the Espoo Convention. This week was the deadline for filing statements related to the national permitting processes in Germany, Denmark and Finland.
Stakeholder participation and engagement seek to identify any issues that need to be resolved and ensure that mitigation measures are appropriate. Before issuing permits to Nord Stream, authorities will carefully assess the potential impact of the Nord Stream project. All relevant stakeholder comments will be taken into account. The authorities will communicate all outstanding issues to the project developer, and plans for construction and operation of the pipeline will be adapted if necessary.
Consequently, Nord Stream will not comment on any individual statements at this stage in the permitting process.
The transboundary environmental report (“Espoo Report”) and the national application documents were developed in terms of scope and methodology over three years of close cooperation with all Baltic Sea states’ authorities. The documents have accounted for a substantial number of comments received from all Baltic Sea countries during various rounds of consultation. They contain the results of detailed environmental studies of the Baltic Sea conducted over many years. Moreover, Nord Stream has analysed and integrated scientific data and studies from other organisations such as HELCOM.
Therefore, Nord Stream is confident that the design and routing of the pipeline is safe and environmentally-sound.
