Countdown on the Baltic Sea: Will Baby Herring and Conservationists Delay Russo-German Pipeline?

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Every day around 200 pieces of pipe are covered with the thick concrete coating. Inside the Eupec factory, a low rise building with a red roof, the vibe is a bit like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The pipes slide almost soundlessly along conveyor belts to have a wire cage placed around them. Then they are covered with concrete. Everything is -- more or less -- automated. After this, the pipes are dried in what employees here jokingly call the biggest sauna in Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania.

More pipes arrive regularly by train. Some days there is one train, other days there are two. A red crane unloads the wagons, stacks the pieces of pipes in imposing piles or loads them directly onto trucks. These then deliver the pipes to the concrete-coating factory or straight to the wharf where, night after night, they are loaded onto ships that take them to the Swedish port of Slite, where another storage facility is located. It is all part of a logistical masterwork that allows the builders to know exactly where any piece of pipe is, at any time. "Every piece of pipe is identifiable," Lissek boasts.

Before taking this job with the pipeline consortium, whose board is chaired by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Lissek worked for German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom and supermarket chain Rewe. The public relations professional has a clear message to convey: Preparations for the pipeline are going well and there is no need for anyone to worry about the environment. In short: Everything is going according to plan.

Pipeline Construction Likely to Stir Ocean Floor

Lissek describes how giant pipe-laying vessels will soon be lowering the welded pieces of pipeline to the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The pipeline is to consist of two pipes -- the first is to be laid this year and the second in 2011. The only exceptions to this schedule will happen where the pipeline makes landfall in the German coastal resort of Lubmin and in Vyborg in Russia, near the border with Finland. There, sections will be laid simultaneously in order to minimize the environmental impacts.

But there is still a problem. Near the coast the pipeline needs to be buried beneath the sea floor. This is done to prevent a worst-case scenario of the land-locked junctions breaking apart if the pipeline moves around on the ocean floor. Still, even burying the pipeline close to the coast is problematic -- not least for the local herring. The fish lay their eggs in the plants growing in the shallow waters of the bay, and it takes the eggs two weeks to develop into larvae.

Those larvae could be threatened by construction if digging for the pipeline stirs up too much sediment, which could cover the fish larvae and potentially asphyxiate them. Nobody really knows for sure whether this will be a problem -- but the fisheries scientists are urging caution. "For scientific reasons we are opposed to starting the (pipeline) construction on May 15," von Dorrien says. "It would be better to start building in June or July."

Winter may Delay Herring Spawning Season

At the moment the bay of Greifswald is actually still covered in thick ice. In fact a long, hard winter could mean that the herring spawning season starts later. Which would mean that the pipeline project begins right at the high point for herring spawning, if it starts at all.

The Nord Stream pipeline builders attained the approval of all the nations affected by the pipeline some time ago. But environmentalist organizations WWF and BUND, the German branch of Friends of the Earth, have filed for a temporary injunction to stop construction with the higher administrative court in Greifswald. The conservationists argue that the permit issued for the construction of the pipeline did not provide sufficient compensatory measures for the environmental damage it would cause. They argue, for example, that digging will stir up residues of fertilizers left on the on the ocean floor, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. They believe the work could present a serious threat to the Baltic Sea eco-system and they are critical of the fact that Nord Stream only plans to compensate for 40 percent of the encroachments -- a figure they consider to be far too little.

Spokesperson Lissek confirms this figure and says the consortium will pay compensation of €3.6 million -- just as it says in the planning permission.

Will German Judges Side with Environmentalists?

The conservationists believe this figure is too small. They are also critical of the fact that the ocean shelf between the Greifswald Bay and the Baltic Sea will have to be partially dug up because a channel needs to be made, for the large pipe-laying ships to get through. The sediment removed is expected to be planted back on the ocean floor near Usedom.

Nobody knows when the judges will make their decision at the court in Greifswald, which is about an hour away from Rostock. It will have to be soon though -- construction is supposed to begin shortly. Of course, that could all change if the judges side with the conservationists.

Whatever else happens this spring, pipeline work in the bay may well be endangered again when the herring return at the end of this year. For the herring's sake, the ocean bed there has to be peaceful again between the beginning of 2011 and mid-May. But officials at Nord Stream aren't overly concerned. "We will be finished," Lissek says with certainty.

By the end of this month, the pipeline consortium plans to sink its first piece of pipe -- in the North Sea, and only as a test.

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• Part 1: Will Baby Herring and Conservationists Delay Russo-German Pipeline?
• Part 2: Nord Stream: 'Everything Going According to Plan'