Latviski
The Freeport of Riga has commenced reconstruction works of shipping channel, comprising both deepening and widening works of the ship pass. Such decision was made because, regardless of the regular maintenance of the ship pass, its current width and depth had exhausted its capabilities and could not completely ensure handling of the big “Panamax” type ships. On 5 July 2011, the Riga City Council accepted the planned activity that first envisages deepening of the channel up to 15 meters in section from reception buoy up to the middle of Island Kundziņsala, performing works from 2012 till 2014; then, if demand of stevedores will be sufficient, deepening of the channel up to 17 meters in section from reception buoy up to Rīnūži, performing works from 2014 till 2018.
In order to maintain competitiveness of the Riga Port and ensure handling of all ships navigating in the Baltic Sea, the Riga Port applied project “Reconstruction of the access channel for entrance of ships into the Riga Port” within the frameworks of the TEN-T program of the European Commission in 2008, and 50% or 225 000 EUR of the necessary financing were obtained for research and elaboration of technical project. In order to select the designer, an international tender was organized, and full liability company of engineers “Kurbada tilti Deprom Ramboll” was declared the winner. Taking into account the volume of the project that envisaged deepening of the access channel from the middle of Island Kundziņsala up to access buoy, environmental impact assessment procedure was performed. As a result of the research by making drills and analyzing the extracted ground it was established that bed of the River Daugava is rather clean and with no hazardous pollution. The procedure also showed that, when deepening the bed, impact on the surrounding environment would be too insignificant to raise the need to abandon implementation of the project of such volume. The best location direction of the ship pass was chosen and places where the extracted ground could be deposited were selected. As to the extracted ground, it should be taken into account that it is a valuable construction material which, depending on quality of the ground, could be used in construction. Therefore a decision was made to deposit part of the ground near the Western breakwater. Currently both the Freeport of Riga Authority and the Riga City Council have accepted the planned activity allowing the Riga Port to fully implement this project in future. The next step is to prepare this project for acquisition of European financing.
Vladimirs Makarovs, Director of the Strategic Planning and Project Management Department of the Freeport of Riga Authority, admits that: “If we want the Riga Port to take its place among Baltic ports also in future and use European co-financing allocated to it efficiently, implementation of such projects, namely, actual commencement of works, should be seriously thought of. It does not mean, though, that dredging works envisage immediate deepening of River Daugava to 17 m, but, based on the demand to serve ships with bigger draughts, we will ensure their efficient handling.”
