The last rehabilitation of the Dobrakovo landslide near Bijelo Polje cost 5,26 million euros and was completed in mid-September last year, but new landslides could occur at this location - if the landfill there is not closed. Technical documentation has shown that the rehabilitation will not be permanent if waste disposal continues.
This was officially announced to "Vijesti" by the Traffic Administration.
The Dobrakovo landslide is located on the Bijelo Polje - Barski Most highway and between the border crossings of Montenegro and Serbia, and has been active for several years and has been remediated several times. The Transport Administration announced a tender for the latest remediation in mid-August 2023, while the job worth 5.266.067 euros went to the Danilovgrad company "Eurozox". The works began in mid-March 2024 and were completed in a year and a half, on September 8 last year.
The Administration emphasized that they had already contacted the Municipality of Bijelo Polje and the company "Komunalno - Lim" due to the problems caused by the nearby city landfill, but had not received any feedback.
"The daily disposal of municipal waste at the aforementioned landfill causes additional strain on the landslide body, and therefore endangers built structures and creates an additional possibility of endangering the remediated landslide, as well as the safety of traffic participants on the main road that represents the connection between the two countries. According to the records of the personnel involved in the landslide remediation, 200-300 tons of municipal waste are delivered to the landfill daily. In order to avoid a situation where a landslide remediation site in the future has a recurrence at the same location (according to the records of the Traffic Administration, the almost completed remediation is the third in a row), it is necessary to stop dumping waste at the landfill in question and close it. Otherwise, the completed landslide remediation will have no significance," the Administration emphasized.
"Vijesti" asked the Municipality of Bijelo Polje 15 days ago whether they planned to shut down and relieve the landfill, whether they had approvals for it, what its surface area was and how much waste was in it, who would be responsible if the landslide was triggered again... Answers had not been submitted by the time this issue was published.
No consent for the trip
The Traffic Administration said that the landfill has been active for several decades and that they do not have a document in their archives that issued approval for its access road. They emphasized that the rehabilitation included a bank fortification in part of the slope, a supporting structure made of piles, drainage, and water drainage out of the landslide.
"During the preparation and revision of the technical documentation, the designer "Civil Engineer" and the auditor "Ing-Invest" were concise in their position that all the designed landslide rehabilitation measures would not be permanent if waste disposal activities continued, i.e. if the landfill remained active. The supervising geological engineer is of the same opinion, who, in addition to the above, believes that the landslide should be additionally relieved," the Administration stated.
Minister of Transport Maja Vukićević and director of the Traffic Administration Radomir Vuksanovic In mid-September last year, they visited the repaired landslide, with Vukićević saying that these works provided a permanent solution and unhindered traffic flow.
In addition to multiple landslides, the problem of the landfill has been pointed out for years by the non-governmental organization (NGO) "Euromost", from which they have repeatedly requested its closure because, as they claim, it endangers the lives of everyone passing along the highway, the Lim River, but also that its collapse could lead to unforeseeable consequences. In April 2023, they announced that the Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorate had inspected "Komunalno - Lim" and found a number of irregularities, including that they had not assigned employees to provide first aid, fire protection and evacuation of employees, training, and changed the risk assessment act...
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