12 November 2009

NOVI PAZAR - Novi Pazar, although it had the status of a city for two years, unlike the majority of cities and municipalities in Serbia, still does not have a Local environmental action plan (LEAP). There are many accumulated problems and it is hard to determine priorities: uncompleted and used garbage dump that has been burning for several months, direct inflow of fecal sewage into rivers, watercourses contaminated with solid waste and toxic wastewater, uncontrolled cutting of forests, increasing air pollution, stray dogs…
Until recently these environmental problems of Novi Pazar were mostly referred to by environmental activists and local non-governmental organizations, but the seriousness of the environmental situation in Novi Pazar was confirmed by the visitation to the city of the minister of environment and spatial planning, Oliver Dulic, in the beginning of November, the terrain inspection and the decision of the City council to introduce the communal police in Novi Pazar.

Dulic promised that the city would be given priority in the upcoming plans and programs of the Ministry and that in the next several weeks they would solve the problem of the dumpsite "Golo brdo (Bare hill)", that was on fire.

"This will be just an intervention, but we will also commence the creation of a sustainable system, according to which Novi Pazar will be the centre of regional waste management, that includes separation, recycling and maintenance of a normal, European garbage dump", says Dulic.

The dumpsite "Golo brdo", "ecological bomb" of Novi Pazar, situated 26 km from the city at the altitude of around 1,000 meters, was never completely finished, yet it started being exploited in 2000. Apart from its non-functionality, the dump is located in the place where nature thrived, surrounded by forest, with several springs flowing into it, creating a watercourse that carries toxic matter into river Josanica – the contamination of the river is such that cattle refuse to drink from it and it cannot be used to water the vegetables.

The people from near-by villages had to move out of their homes because of the garbage dump. Golo brdo became the location from where unpleasant smell spreads for miles around, where wild boars and ravens gather, and the smoke from burnt waste still rises above it.

The existing garbage dump can be used in the upcoming period, but within that time project documentation has to be done and a different location found, suggest the environmental NGOs. The new mayor of Novi Pazar, Meho Mahmutovic, used the recent visit by businessmen from Turkey to announce the possible project to build a regional centre for waste separation and recycling in the place of the existing dumpsite.

This idea was not supported by the local environmental activists, or the representatives of both ruling and opposing political parties. Mithat Nokic, the president of the Green Party and the director of the newly-formed Fund for environmental protection of the City Administration, says that the recycling centre can be built in the urban centre. "That is like putting make-up on a dead body, it would be much better to give up on that dump that poisons the entire surroundings and the city itself, and build another one, closer to the city", says Nokic.

The PR of the opposing Party of Democratic Action of Sandzak (SDA), Enis Imamovic, says he does not see the logic behind the construction of such a recycling centre. "It makes no sense to build some kind of a centre for the recycling and destruction of garbage for several municipalities at the latitude of 1,000 m”, thinks Imamovic. The similar opinion share NGOs "Raski sliv" and "Eko help".

"The garbage dump is a unique problem, it is impossible to dump waste there already, because the dumping was done without any planning or order, and the building of the regional centre is out of the question. We need to find a different, adequate location, near the highway", points out the activist of "Eko help" Omer Corovic. The president of NGO "Raski sliv" Ibro Mehmedovic states that this organization prepared the project for this dumpsite to be relocated, reminding that "young people afforested this location 25 years ago and they built a wild dump on this location that was neither sanitary or ecological".

The representatives of NGOs in Novi Pazar point out that the precondition for every further step in the solving of these accumulated environmental problems is the adoption of LEAP. “Local environmental action plan regulates everything. The management of solid waste, city greenery, education, all that is needed for the solving of the accumulated problems”, states Ibro Mehmedovic and adds that the current local administration made a progress in this field with the creation of the Fund for ecology.

Eko help criticizes the new local government for stopping the adoption of LEAP, for which the previous government hired the Institute of the University in Nis. "LEAP was prescribed by the European Union and it is tragic that the current Department for environmental protection of the City administration does not have a serious approach for the solving of accumulated problems", says Corovic.

The local government announces the passing of all important legal acts from the field of environmental protection, while the opposing SDA states that the adoption of LEAP for Novi Pazar was the job they started. The Green Party can hardly choose which problem to solve first when it comes to environmental problems, but Nokic says that the rivers in Novi Pazar were turned into sewage and warns that the largest sources of river pollution were the jeans factories, slaughterhouses, shoe factories and manufacturers of furniture.

"Everything that endangers my health bothers me, my heart bleeds for the rivers, and I would first solve the problem of river contamination and the government has to participate. These projects require financial investments and all-around social action", points out Nokic and gives the example of Germany, where court cases involving ecology have priority. Enis Imamovic, vice-president of SDA Sandzak, the party that currently works on the plan to put together a list of polluters, states that "the biggest polluters are textile factories and we also have the disposal of different types of waste into riverbeds" – car shells, kitchen stoves, old furniture…

He greeted the announced introduction of communal police and the forming of the environmental fund, but also stated that these good decisions should not be used just to employ people and satisfy political interests.

"Raski sliv" monitors the condition of watercourses with great attention, and they concluded, among other things, that only three out of 44 plants for the grinding of jeans had built-in filters. The rest of them, according to their research, dump the toxic wastewater directly into Raska River, which has no fish in its course before it flows into Ibar River. Besides these plants, water is contaminated by slaughterhouses that dump their wastewater directly into rivers Raska and Josanica

"Raski sliv" determined in one research on the condition of watercourses that Raska River, before it reaches the spring in Delimedje, contains 650,000 bacteria per liter, which is the border-value of contamination. At the wellspring Sopocani, since the water here is purified through soil, the number of bacteria drops to 5,000 bacteria per liter. This water goes into the city filter that is still effective and manages to purify the water. If this was not the case, claim people from this NGO, Novi Pazar would have at least one epidemic each year.

The environmental problem of Novi Pazar that was pushed under the rug since the communist regime is the problem of the city sewage system that directly flows into Raska River. The sewage system was built 25 years ago and still has not been finished. "There is no installation for the processing of wastewater, the collector is missing, and wastewater flows directly into the river", explains the president of "Raski sliv" Mehmedovic.

Eko help reports that it is necessary to place small collectors throughout the city, as well as the central collector, which would clean up the fecal sewage, and all industries should have built-in filters and purifying systems.

"Nothing obligates them to do this, and the communal enterprise has no funds. That is why it is necessary to make the list of polluters", points out this NGO and adds that all the problems should be solved with planning and through the institutions of the system, which would put the environmental problems first.

In the city that lays at the confluence of Josanica into Raska River we do not have information about the condition of air, because there was no monitoring at the typical locations with pollution and there was no official data on the results of the monitoring available to the public. In this city, wood is still being used as the principle heating fuel and the cutting of trees is in full swing. Because of the favorable position and good atmospheric conditions, the air in Novi Pazar manages to purify itself naturally, but if the uncontrolled cutting of trees continues that treasure will be lost. There is no data on the damage done to the forest fund in this area, which leads to the loss of clean air and clean water.

Like in the rest of Serbia, we have an evident problem of stray dogs. The local authorities were unprepared for the new Law on animal protection. At the location of the dumpsite "Golo brdo" there is a dog shelter, but the problem is still not solved, since in the cold of winter these animals are endangered the most.

The usual practice that even large cattle are being raised within city limits is an additional communal, as well as environmental problem. There are a lot of people who breed cows, goats and even sheep in the central and wider city area, while the breeding of poultry is commonplace. The local authorities cannot fight against these problems because, as they point out, the people that came from the village, as well as those living in the city for decades, do not want to change their habits and stop breeding cattle because of economic interest.

Another problem in Novi Pazar is the unlawful dumping of animal waste produced by slaughterhouses and meat factories, as well as the dumping of medicinal waste, which came as the result of the increasing number of private clinics, and the Health centre of Novi Pazar is the only facility that dumps the medicinal waste according to regulations.

Besides the urgent adoption of LEAP, the representatives of the civil society think that the environmental problems of Novi Pazar can be solved with effort by the institutions of the system, and as one method they suggest higher financial penalties for those who endanger and contaminate the environment.

Source: EkoForum