On the 5th of June, the World Environment Day, we would like to present a story about contaminated place and how it was changed. A place in Višķi parish does not cause a threat to environment anymore and it could be developed in a future.
The story is about a remediation project “Clean – up of the Historically Polluted Site “Heavy fuel oil storage of Višķi Vocational Secondary School”” implemented by the Augšdaugava Municipality in Višķi parish under the open call “Mitigation of Risks Related to Historically Contaminated Sites” within the Norway grants programme on Climate and Environment.
The Project Story is about cleaning -up a contaminated place in Višķi parish which was selected to European scale campaign #OurStories organized by the Financial Mechanism Office.
During the spring of this year, in the territory of Viski professional school, the lawn is cultivated. But it is not usual. Previously this territory in an area of 4 hectares was one of the more contaminated places in the whole region of Latgale. As this area is located approximately 500 meters from two lakes – Lukna lake and Višķi lake, the contaminated underground waters could leach in the river Daugava thus causing significant contamination risk to the whole region. During the remediation works in the former storage facility of fuel oil 6 150 tons of oil contaminated hazardous waste were extracted and collected for utilization. To visualize such a volume of hazardous waste, it composes 88 railway wagons on average (approximately 70 tons in each wagon).
A storage facility for fuel oil was built in 1960ties in the territory of the Višķi professional school to provide fuel for central heating system to Višķi and Špoģi villages. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the heating supply technologies have changed significantly, but the contamination of oil products and fuel oil in this place had been remained until remediation was started in 2022. The intensive work phase of remediation was concluded in spring this year; however, the environment monitoring will continue for the next 5 years.
The other significant benefit for inhabitants is obtained knowledge and information about environmental and climate change issues. The school children and young people from local municipality were involved in education campaigns, competitions and events organized by the project. The association “Višķu attīstībai” in cooperation of the partner from Norway “Henric Johansson Konsult” also organized the exchange events of good practices and awareness raising campaigns to promote understanding and a linkage between actions of people and processes in climate and environment.
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