Environment Energy Mining Watch SEE|News|Kosovo’s waste in the artificial lake on the Ibar, Serbia

Kosovo’s waste in the artificial lake on the Ibar, Serbia

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Professor at the Faculty of Medicine in North Mitrovica, Aleksandar Corac said that 160 million tons of waste from Kosovo will end up in the artificial lake on the Ibar River near Raska in Serbia.

 

With each passing year, a growing number of tons of tailings will be released into the artificial lake being built on the Ibar River, between Raska and Kraljevo, where the construction of the MHPP is planned, out of the total amount of 160 million tons of industrial waste found in the territory of this basin –Corac said on the KoSSev portal’s “Propitivanje” talk-show.

Corac pointed out that this large amount of waste has a major impact not only on the environment in Kosovo, but also in central Serbia, or part of the Danube region, as the waste used to end up in the Danube river. With the construction of the lake, the Raska area will also suffer harmful effects – he warned.

Tailings in the Ibar basin, that is, industrial waste accumulated over decades-long operations of former SFRY’s plant facilities, can be found in the immediate vicinity of the Gracanka, Sitnica and Ibar rivers. As a result, settlements in Kosovo – from Gracanica, through Obilic, to northern Kosovo, are surrounded by these pollutants. Residents remember them only when they feel directly threatened, which is when winds start blowing or when it starts raining and the waste is then spread through air and water.

„The majority of pollution, everything the water washes out during the year, will end up in that lake, and people are not thinking about it,” Corac said.

When it comes to the north of Kosovo, there are several such landfills along the Sitnica and Ibar – from North Mitrovica, through Zvecan, Leposavic and Rudnica, following the Ibar basin, which continues to flow to Raska and Kraljevo.

„In rainy periods, especially with heavy rains, that sediment is pulled out of the rivers, as well as more waste from those landfills, and all of it flows down the river,“ he added.

Corac stressed that the tests he carried out with his colleagues observed the largest amount of poisonous particles in places near Kraljevo, especially during the rainy seasons.

“We found larger amounts of arsenic and lead in Bogutovac than we found here in Grabovac. You see how everything is combined in ecology. Ecology knows boundaries, but these are not boundaries that people draw,“ he emphasized.

Corac pointed out that no environmental impact study has been done so far.

„It just goes to show that we live in absolutely immature societies, which we can classically call exploitative, because the political class or those who have the power – whether gained through politics or through money, only want to pursue personal interests, the citizens’ interests are paid little attention to. The essence of ecology and the fight against environmental pollution is precisely found in these strategic decisions that are beneficial for all of us,“ he said.

The professor revealed that he is attempting to launch a study initiative through the Danube Initiative.

„We are now attempting to launch a project to study the impact of all pollution from other industrial sites affecting health and to work systematically through a joint initiative with colleagues from countries in our area.“

The territory of Kosovo is not covered by the Danube Group, and this is one of the significant problems to systematically and proactively solving the problem of industrial waste treatment.

Source: kossev.info

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