«We are not proud of it, but it is what it is, a technical issue, the ship is at the bottom,» said Justina Juozapone, a representative of the Directorate.
According to her, the depth in the port where the ship sank is 3 meters. The 50-meter long Narva ship is a self-propelled barge. It belongs to the Directorate.
The barge was placed in the Kaunas winter port for the winter, next to other ships.
«The barge has not been in operation since the end of August. The ship sank because the ice pierced its hull,» said Juozapone.
Efforts to raise the barge are planned for the spring when weather conditions allow.
«The Directorate guarantees that the situation is under control. The Narva ship poses no danger, there is no pollution. It does not contain fuel. The oil has also been drained. The company has done everything possible to avoid contamination,» the Directorate’s statement said.
A former Minister of Environmental Protection, a deputy learned about this incident from fishermen and shared a photo of the sunken ship on Facebook.
«For more than a week now, one of the three Lithuanian barges has been at the bottom of the Neman River. This is not some little boat in a swamp, it is a barge owned by the Internal Waterways Directorate with oil and fuel that do not belong in the river… But everyone is silent, waiting for the spring flooding to wash away the pollution,» the deputy wrote.