Environmental whistle blowing

There have been quite a lot of green protests recently in Russia against operation of various marine terminals. It appears to be a dilemma: on the one hand - the necessity of expansion of stevedoring facilities and on the other - the comfort of inhabitants - on the other.

Total cargo throughput at Russian ports has already exceeded the Soviet-era figure. At the same time, we see a deficit of some facilities for handling certain types of goods, which can hardly be called environmentally friendly cargoes, for example, coal, fertilizers and oil products. And since the vast majority of the country's ports are located within cities boundaries, the collision is increasingly growing between the interests of local residents and businesses. There are several examples.

Thus, the southern Russia, traditionally considered as a resort region, is very sensitive to the increasing cargo traffic at ports. Environmental scandals are occurring more and more often. This is the situation around Tuapse Bulk Terminal, a facility owned by Eurochem transshipping mineral fertilizers, the Yeysk-based oil terminals, using the resort city of Anapa as a cargo port...

In the Baltic basin - in St. Petersburg, the project of construction of the outer harbor in the Lomonosovsky district failed to pass public hearing because the locals fear the port complex construction would destroy the recreational areas there. In the Far Eastern basin an incident involving pollution of waters of the port of Nakhodka with coal dust went public.  

The social tension increases in other cities as well, where stevedoring business is expanding.

Even if we consider that the environmental fuss around the ports, in our opinion, often is fueled by various interested parties and organizations, there is yet a quite clearly seen contradiction between the need for development of ports in Russia, the reorientation of Russian imported goods from the ports of neighboring countries to the domestic ports, and the development of port cities themselves.

Escape from stone jungles

Bearing in mind all what has been said above, it becomes evident that the new ports should be constructed outside large inhabited localities. Port of Ust-Luga, which is located far from megapolises, became a pioneer project. As a result, that allowed the state to avoid social tension and provide investors with enough space for stevedoring, logistics and even for industrial activity.

The authors of a new port complex in Taman took the same path and started building the port in the "open field".

Such projects similar to Ust-Luga and Taman are not only feasible but also allow partially take loads from "old" ports located around. Thus, the Ust-Luga ‘grabs’ some volumes of Big Port St. Petersburg and Primorsk port, Taman will help relieve some small estuary ports of the South Basin. The outer harbor Bronka, which will be located within the boundaries of Big Port St. Petersburg but on the periphery of the megapolis, will simultaneously increase the port's throughput and reduce the burden on the city.

However, the new ports itself are gradually being surrounded by residential and recreational areas, as is already happening with the Ust- Luga, so that in the long run the conflicting situation between the port and the city can be repeated in new places.

As for the existing ports, depending on the specific situation, there are several options for their further development. In St. Petersburg - the construction of outer harbors, far from the cities. In some cities this could be the relocation of all stevedoring activity beyond their boundaries. There have been some discussions recently about the possibility of removal of port facilities from Astrakhan, and even from Kaliningrad. In Murmansk - the construction of new marine terminals at the expense of sparsely populated areas (as part of the Murmansk transportation node project).

Another problem is the excessive centralization of budget and business relations, due to which a significant portion of the proceeds from the ports’ activity goes directly to the federal budget while the regions, which are most troubled with the neighboring ports and environmental load, get only a small slice of the money. That, of course, does not encourage peaceful co-existence of ports and cities.

Vitaly Chernov.