Video shows Nord Stream 1 damage
A map showing the damage caused by the pipeline’s construction.
Nord Stream 2, the new pipeline planned to link Russia and Germany, has already been approved by Russia’s Federal Assembly. But that doesn’t mean the project will go smoothly.
In the last day, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich visited the site of the first pipeline in the Vyborg district of Russia. He was accompanied by a group of officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and some officials from the Federal Service for Hydropower and Water Management. They were there to document the damage caused to the ground by the construction of the pipeline.
The ministry’s head of state-owned pipeline construction, Olga Storcheva, was also there. She says that the construction was “a big success.” But she adds, “There are still problems to be solved. For example, even this morning we were having lunch at a restaurant on the site. We noticed that the ground where the pipeline will be built is covered with thick, almost impassable soil and there is only one small opening where a man can go, so that he can check the construction site and make sure the building site is ready.”
Storcheva says that the ground will need to be cleared, which is already being done. She adds that the pipeline’s construction should be finished in 2018, but that will depend on how well the ground is cleaned beforehand. On that subject, Storcheva says, “We have to clean the ground, the way it was done for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the way it was done for the construction of the Trans-Dniestr, the Trans-Ableon and the Trans-Siberian. Then you can say that when we go to clear the ground, the ground is there.”
The pipeline is also creating problems for residents of the town of Vyborg. In that district alone, the pipeline’s construction has disturbed about 400 square meters (20,000 square feet
