|
The hot spot in Bajza is cleaned up |
|
|
Bajza, Albania - Cleaning up works at the railway station in Bajza finished on 11th September, 2009.
Bajza is the last railway station in Albania before the frontier with Montenegro, so its acts as a customs control point. There is no passenger traffic, but two freight trains pass through daily with approximately 10,000 t of freight being handled each month. The station is located at the shore of trans-boundary Shkoder (Skadar) Lake – the largest lake on the Balkan Peninsula that both Albania and Montenegro have officially designated as a cross-border protected area of Shkoder/Skader Lake together with Buna/Bojana River. During the early 1990s hazardous chemical waste (old pesticides) was exported to Albania by train. Most of the hazardous waste could be shipped back, but part of the load was discharged at the platforms and was stored at Bajza station.
In frame of the umbrella program “Strengthening capacities in the Western Balkan countries to address environmental hot spots through an integrated approach”, the Albanian hot spot project contracted in June 2009 a company from UK to remediate / clean up the chemical waste stored in one of the storehouses of the station. Within the timeframe June 2009 – September 2009 the chemical waste were safely repacked and transported to a final treatment and disposal site. Twelve tons of sodium fluorosilicate, 6 tons of contaminated shoe leather pieces, which for years were mixed with white powder and 60 tons of regular shoe leather waste are collected in drums and specialized transport bags. The clean up works finished on 11th September 2009 and finalization of the works was followed by national and international media, like Shekulli, Gazeta Shqiptare, Panoram, Standard. It was also broadcasted in Deutsche Welle, Voice of America. More information about the media coverage of the event you can find under Press Clipping.
|
Albania