An accident at a recycling plant has caused a major spill of unfiltered waste containing sulphurous sludge into the Baltic Sea, leading to the closure of beaches in western Latvia, local authorities announced on Monday.
At least 1,250 tonnes of the polluted water leaked out after a wall collapsed on Sunday at the wastewater recycling plant in Liepaja, a coastal city of 70,000 inhabitants.
“We don’t know when we’ll manage to repair the broken sludge tanks, which is why I’m advising everyone in Liepaja to pour less water down the toilet because now all the sewage is being dumped into the open sea,” Gunars Ansins, the mayor of Liepaja, told LTV1 television on Monday.
Latvia’s health inspectorate has ordered the closure of all beaches from the Lithuanian border to the town of Pavilosta, north of Liepaja, and has banned swimming in the Baltic Sea.
The national environmental protection service, meanwhile, has launched an investigation into the accident, lamenting that every hour 400 tonnes of liquid waste continues to wash up in the sea.
“The waste management system is capable of accumulating 21,000 cubic metres of liquid waste but this capacity is only enough to last two days, so we are building a temporary pipe to bypass the collapsed part of the recycling plant,” Andis Dejus, CEO of the Liepajas Udens utility company, which manages the municipal water and recycling systems, told reporters.
