MOSCOW, October 26 (AVN) -- The Russian Black Sea fleet has completed testing the new Ekomarin separator intended for purification of oil-containing water, a Navy Sfatt spokesman said on Tuesday.
The new separator is 2.5 times more effective than its predecessor, the spokesman told the Military News Agency. It provides a quality of water treatment which matches all standards of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (Marpol 73/78), he said.
The Navy is one of the main sources of pollution in Russian seas. According to the Defence Ministry Environment Service, concentration of oil products in sea water near main naval bases by far exceeds regular parameters. In Vladivostok, water pollution is three times above the norm, in Severomorsk 2.8 times, in Kronshtadt eight times, in Baltiysk 13 times and in Sevalstopol 14 times.
The Navy needs to process almost 50,000 tons of oil-containing sewage a year, the environment service said. However 74 water treatment ships only processed 12,000 tons in the first half of 1999.