It was another ecological fairy tale with an unhappy ending. Like the one from the early 1990s, when the fight against what was arguably Montenegro's biggest polluter was interrupted by a war to defend all of Serbdom, from Triglav to Đevđelija...
This time, Serbianness is defended only in places and in details - language, citizenship, and flag - but that is no guarantee that this smaller ecological battle will not be lost due to higher political goals...
Pollution by fecal sludge and its incineration is still in the stage of reasonable suspicion. For the reason that evidence can only be valid when it is too late, in three years at the earliest...
Until then, the mudslinging of Podgorica and state authorities will increasingly smell of fecal sludge...
But the construction of the facility is important for the protection of the environment and the health of citizens, claim the defenders of what is allegedly the largest investment in Podgorica's history...
No matter what, Botun must fall to save the coalition of horns in a bag. And not only from falling from power but also from going to prison...
* * *
And that is what this - truly historic - unity of action between the majority in power and the majority opposition should serve. With the support of the majority of environmental activists and journalists...
And of all of them, I now sincerely regret only Ivan Vuković, because in June 2022 he could not have known what he found out in December 2025...
That, for the collector contract with Mehmet Emre Bastopcu and Bajram Albayrak, they will receive more support than the one that Momir Bulatović and Milo Đukanović received together regarding the agreement with Slobodan Milošević on war for peace...
Luckily, not even this democratic police could take him out of that office in Njegoševa...
Nor would the capital city get a mayor who is shocked by the damming of the Mareza canal, whose ceremonial opening - not of the canal but of the dam - he performed himself...
* * *
And the prime minister, by his own admission, was shocked when he found out that he lived next to a sewer in Tokyo...
And I believe him, because the entire developed world believes in Japan's environmental achievements...
And instead of trying to bring a few of them across our border, no matter what the cost, he is trying to save the unity of action of his multi-party party through Botun.
And in every way, including through the actions of the democratic police...
Until that action - ten to one, oh, is that even possible, as that verse about partisans says - the head of parliament did not speak out, trying to cover up the rift with his best friend...
And with a party base that - unlike him - is not ready to turn Zeta into the sewage capital of Montenegro due to false Europeanism...
The president of the country was trying to send rational messages, it's a shame that after that irrational decision to join the Podgorica coalition, no one trusts him anymore...
Of the parties, the DPS has so far benefited the most from the construction of the plant. The only party for whose project four-fifths of its political opponents lost...
* * *
At the beginning of the story about that contract, the truth about its name, content, ecological and technological suitability of the facility and - what is the biggest problem - the choice of location was first lost...
This story is a decade and a half old, the dramatic plot has been going on for more than half a year, but in all that time, no one has answered the key question...
Why Botun in particular, opponents of the construction have not been clear from the beginning. That supporters do not know the answer either, was clear at the end of the pre-New Year offensive against the residents of that small Zeta village...
If the answer doesn't include the fact that they've been poisoning it for decades anyway, then it's no big deal to load them with half of Montenegro's feces. According to geographical rather than national criteria, so that it doesn't turn out like I'm exaggerating on the aforementioned national basis...
Even the claim that this particular location guarantees a clean Morača River and an even cleaner Skadar Lake is not drinkable...
Because, unless this ignorant, frivolous and irresponsible government decides otherwise, the Zeta River will continue to flow into the Morača River, into which not only all fecal but also other wastewater from Nikšić, Danilovgrad and Spuž flows...
Plus those from Vranjske Njive, Veliko and Malo Brdo, all the way to Krivi most. In which the measured pollution is only slightly less than downstream from the old collector...
If I remember correctly, so far we have only received the word of honor from the mayor of Podgorica regarding guarantees that the new plant will not become a new - albeit significantly smaller - polluter...
* * *
So, let's once again refresh the material on the frauds of city and state authorities...
The first occurred back in June 2022, when the public was informed that a "contract for the construction of the main wastewater treatment plant" had been signed...
It was only after the contract was announced at the end of 2025 that it was revealed that this was not the full name of the contract and that two more plants would be built in Botun, for the treatment of fecal sludge and for incineration...
Works for Construction of a Wastewater Treatment Plant, Sewage Sludge Treatment Plant and Sewage Sludge Incineration Plant for the City of Podgorica - tako se taj ugovor zove na engleskom...
Construction works on a wastewater treatment plant, a sewage sludge treatment plant and a sewage sludge incineration plant for the city of Podgorica - this is how artificial intelligence translated...
Which should have been enough for natural intelligence to understand the primary goal of the government. That the expected mass public debate is only about water purification, which no normal person has anything against...
All this time - not just during the five months, but since the signing of the contract - the government has been silent about the construction of two more plants...
One for the treatment of sewage sludge and the other for its incineration, about which the public was - but only partially - informed only after the contract was announced...
I say partly because there is still no explanation of what sludge treatment entails and what kind of incineration method it is...
And because I have a very strong suspicion that that's exactly why those five hundred pages of contracts with designers and builders were blacked out...
From this primary deception, all the others sprang, secondary in order but not in severity...
* * *
A major fraud was also the signing of the contract without geological, hydrological and ecological analyses and - most shamelessly - without the consent of the local community...
And purchasing equipment before getting a building permit...
And hiding two more important facts: that not only Podgorica's sewage will be delivered to Botun, but also that from Cetinje, Danilovgrad and Tuzi, and that Zeta will still only have septic tanks at its disposal
Suspicious and two warnings that really reek of threats have been raised all the time...
One thing came from the EU Delegation, that Chapter 27 cannot be closed without the facility in Botun which "should protect the health of the residents of Podgorica".
Although the Delegation first remembered that village, the facility, and the health only around the fifteenth anniversary of its mandate in Podgorica, and renewed that memory last fall...
The second threatening warning was given by delegates of the local government: if the plant is not in Botun, we will have to return a hundred million or more...
And they deserved a broom, because - following the three-decade tradition of the DPS - they embezzled other people's money, knowing that the residents of Botun, and after the referendum, the entire Zeta region, do not want feces from half of Montenegro to move into their neighborhood...
* * *
They are not literally frauds, but the truth is certainly not helped by two worn-out phrases - substitution of theses and double standards - which the future bearers of the collector's medal have used abundantly all along, and especially in the last six months...
First, admirers of the collector - according to the popular belief that one should hate Saint Peter for the sake of a certain Peter - instead of discussing the ecological suitability of the facility, they misled the public with statements from the president of a foreign country and a domestic MP...
And the double standards are related to the environmental protests before Botun...
I can't shoot at Sinjajevina, and I can't let them...
We don't want electricity from small power plants, and some won't...
The Burj Khalifa is not allowed on the Great Beach, and neither is...
There is no room for a collector in Danilovgrad, and let there be none...
But there is, or rather, there must be room for the feces from one large city - plus two smaller ones and one town - in one small village in Zeta.
"No way," the residents of Botun and their neighbors told local and state authorities after the capital and the state returned from winter break...
I join in, regretting that I can't do it in the same way as I did four decades ago...
And, despite everything, I hope the outcome will be different than then...
Bonus video:
