Liepāja Residents Learn Patience: Hour-Long Line to Find Out No Groundbreaking Happening Yet

The Liepāja Technical College assembly hall hosted a real patience test yesterday — more than 160 Liepāja residents waited in line for an hour asking questions, only to discover that the aviation fuel plant project is just beginning and "no one's laying any foundation stones yet." For comparison — in Riga, people don't wait that long even at Metro checkout lines.

The public consultation meeting was attended by about 50 interested parties both in-person and online, who possibly hoped the internet would be faster than live discussion. Wrong. As ELLE representative Oskars Beikulis noted: "This is the first meeting in a process that has just barely begun." In other words — just like with our tram, everything will happen, but not as quickly as we'd like.

Local SEZ administrator Uldis Hmieļevskis reassured those present, reminding them that the "NorSAF" terminal has been "getting along very well with residential development" since 2010. Local pensioner Marija from the northern suburbs commented: "Well yes, I live peacefully with my neighbors too, but that doesn't mean I want to see them in my kitchen."

Liepāja residents also learned some good news — the Lauma motocross track will be relocated to Karosta forest. Finally, some transport that moves faster than the tram! The project's total investment is planned at around 650 million euros, which is roughly what the city of Liepāja would need to replace all the tram tracks. But that's another story.