Environment Energy Mining Watch SEE|News|The Tara River in Montenegro has once again become a mud

The Tara River in Montenegro has once again become a mud

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For the most part of its flow through Montenegro, from Mojkovac to Šćepan Polje, the river flowed completely muddy on Friday, July 31, and according to environmental activists, it was quite turbid in the weeks before. Information about the new ecological crime on Tara toured the region, environmental activists demanded an urgent reaction and wrote to UNESCO, few tourists gave up rafting in disappointmen. Authorities learned of Tara’s fate from the media.

The Water Inspection determined that the latest turbidity of the Tara River, on the last day of July, was due to works on the Bjelojevicka River – a tributary of the Tara, on the construction of a regional road, whose investor is the Traffic Directorate and the contractor is Bemax. The Directorate for Inspection Affairs also clarified that the river is muddy from soil works, which are being carried out on the section of the road Mojkovac – Vragodo.

They also say that it is not necessary to conduct an environmental assessment procedure for these works, because it is a road with a length of just over eleven kilometers. As they explain, “the regulation on projects for which an environmental impact assessment is performed stipulates that such an assessment can only be requested for highways and regional roads over 20 kilometers in length.”

At the end of July, the muddy Tara, say the travel agencies, made senseless the advertisements in which rafting fans call on that river. Rare tourists did not want to go down the “river they found in a terrible state.” For example, a group of tourists from Belgium, as the president of the Association of Rafters and the Population of NP Durmitor, Veljko Ostojic, told reporters, left in the belief that they had been deceived.

“We advertise Tara as a river whose water can be drunk. We also tell tourists that it is under double protection – as a UNESCO world cultural and natural heritage and under the protection of the Man of biosphere program. In our advertising photos, there is a blue-green river. Luckily, we don’t have the announced rafting groups these days, otherwise, both cheek and business reputation are gone. This is horrible, “they told Monitor in one of the tourist agencies in Kolašin.

Under the Mojkovac old bridge, instead of clear water, on August 5, a bilge flowed. Authorities admit that they heard of the murky Tara from the media.

“Today, the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism sent a written request to the Directorate for Inspection Affairs to send the competent inspections to the field as soon as possible, regarding the information we received through the media about the turbidity of the Tara River on the stretch from Mojkovac to Šćepan Polje fact-finding, “the ministry told Radio Free Europe (RFE) on July 31.

Prior to the inspection findings, the civil sector blamed mostly investors in small hydropower plants (SHPPs) for the ecocide on Tara. They say that the construction of access roads to the SHPP leads to the leaching of thousands of tons of gravel, earth and waste into the Tara riverbed itself.

The NGO Coalition for Sustainable Development (KOR) also informed UNESCO about the latest ecocide of the river. Photos and videos of the destruction of Tara will also be sent to the Delegation of the European Union in Montenegro.

Source: monitor.co.me

 

 

 

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