Tenants of buildings in the immediate vicinity of the boiler house in Skerlićeva Street in Pljevlja will file a lawsuit against the Municipality and the company "Grijanje", if they do not solve the problem of excessive pollution caused by the city's heating plant.
This is what Ilda Katana, manager of one of the residential buildings located in the immediate vicinity of the city's boiler house, told "Vijesta", warning that people's health is at risk.
About 350 apartments in the city center are heated from the boiler house in Skerlićeva Street, for which, in 16 hours of work, about 11,5 tons of coal are consumed daily. The burning of huge amounts of coal leads to enormous air pollution, and some values are 27 times higher than allowed, as stated by the Center for Ecotoxicological Research (CETI)...
Tenants warn that the soot and gases coming out of the low chimney, attached to the building, are becoming more and more dangerous not only for the health of the owners of the surrounding apartments, but also for the entire area.
Life is "unbearable", children are the most vulnerable
"Life near the boiler house is unbearable and practically impossible due to the high level of pollution," Katana told "Vijesti".
The "Vijesti" reporter, who visited the place at the invitation of the tenants, was also convinced that this was the case. The black snow within a radius of a hundred meters from the low chimney of the boiler room, located on the ground floor of one of the buildings, testifies to the conditions in which the residents of the surrounding buildings live.
"The approach to our building looks more like a mining pit than the street that the tenants who live here pass by every day. Mining trucks bring coal for boiler plants and leave huge amounts of mud on the street, which no one wants to clean up. And when all that is additionally covered by the soot falling from the chimney of the boiler house, the situation is more than alarming," Katana pointed out.
He warns that children playing on the nearby training ground and sledding near the chimney are particularly at risk.
"The situation is more than catastrophic. We are practically armored for seven months, which is the duration of the burning season, because we cannot open the windows of our apartments because of the soot, which, especially when the wind blows, is blown in all directions. Tenants cannot spread their laundry on their terraces because of the soot that pours from the chimney of the boiler room. I had to buy a clothes dryer, but what about those who can't afford it. In this building of ours, mostly elderly people live. Our terraces are covered with a large amount of soot, so we cannot use them as long as the heating season lasts, because the chimney of the boiler house, which is only 27 meters high, is only a few meters from our apartments", said Katana.
The law is clear, they are a little out of control
Tenants have repeatedly asked those responsible in the Municipality and the company "Grijanje", which manages the city's boiler house, to install filters, or to use a cleaner energy source, not coal, to heat the apartments. They claim that they have not been answered to that request.
"We are planning to hire people under our own direction who will assess the harmfulness of the particles that we have been breathing for years. If those responsible do not do something and start solving this problem, we will be forced to seek our rights through the courts," said Katana.
In the Law on Property-Legal Relations, in Article 266, it is written that the owners of immovable property who are exposed to excessive missions are authorized to require the owner of the immovable property from which they originate to remove the causes and compensate for the damage they have caused.
Despite this, the tenants say that they did not benefit much from addressing the Environmental Inspection, which they asked to take measures within their jurisdiction.
"In order to reduce the emission of harmful substances in the air, which are emitted during the burning of coal, in the previous period, the Environmental Inspection issued decisions ordering the undertaking of certain measures at the boiler plant with the aim of reducing the emission of pollutants. Acting according to the decisions in question, the subject of supervision continuously undertook the following actions at the boiler plant: installation of frequency air flow regulators, partial automation of the gas tract, replacement of the fraction of coal for combustion (switched from pieces and cubes to the fraction of walnuts)", according to the response of the Environmental Inspection .
It is added that in 2020, the company "Grijanje" was ordered to take appropriate measures in order to reduce polluting substances.
"Due to non-implementation of the ordered measure against 'Grijanja' and the responsible person in that legal entity, a request was submitted to initiate a misdemeanor proceeding. They were punished. A decision was made on the imposition of a fine," the answer stated.
In response to the initiative submitted by Katana in November last year, the Environmental Inspection stated that they ordered the company "Grijanje" to hire an expert institution and perform emissions measurements of harmful and dangerous substances in the flue gas from the boiler plant.
The operation of the boiler house was banned in 2011, the decision failed due to the procedure
In 2011, thermal energy inspector Slavko Burić permanently banned the use of the city's boiler house in Skerlićeva Street due to endangering the safety and health of people, but that decision was revoked by the Administrative Court for procedural reasons.
The chief thermo-energy inspector concluded that an inspection of the area around the balcony and window openings of the building where the boiler house was located revealed a large presence of coal dust, fly ash and soot on the salt banks and window sills, despite the fact that they were additionally sealed with adhesive tapes and nylons.
"For the built boiler plants and the reconstruction of the old boiler house, the investor does not have any construction and site documentation, i.e. urban planning and technical conditions, appropriate design and technical documentation, an environmental impact assessment report, and a building permit," the minutes state.
Katana says that she recently turned to the Thermal Energy Inspection again and asked to inspect the work of the company "Grijanje" due to, as she stated, a series of irregularities found by the Environmental Inspection. She also demanded checks regarding whether the company is operating in accordance with the law.
"I asked them to check whether 'Grijanje' has a permit to carry out activities issued by the Secretariat for Housing and Communal Affairs, Traffic and Water. This decision was not delivered to me even though I contacted the competent authority for delivery".
For several years, the municipality of Pljevlja has been stimulating citizens to use pellets for heating instead of coal - a more environmentally friendly fuel, and on the other hand, it is not taking anything to reduce pollution from the boiler house in Skerlićeva, which still uses coal.
Every government is buying time to talk about heating
Mayor Igor Golubović says that he does not agree with the accusations that the Municipality is not doing anything to reduce pollution.
He claims that the consumption of coal in the city's boiler house was reduced by ten percent after the implementation of energy efficiency measures on the buildings used by the local self-government.
"There are no actions there to reduce pollution, other than reducing the amount of energy you need for heating. You will reduce the amount of energy by warming the buildings that are heated from the boiler room and reducing the amount of energy," said Golubović.
When asked if it was possible to replace the coal-fired boilers with something else, Golubović said that it was possible and that they were thinking about boilers that would use wood chips as an energy source.
"Priboj is a good example in this regard, where the city center was transferred to be heated with wood chips. This is the alternative we were thinking about working with the boiler house in Skerlićeva Street. This requires a lot of other activities, considering that heating has started and that Elektroprivreda Crne Gore entered the project out of its own interest and that through the ecological reconstruction of the Thermal Power Plant, a source for heating the city will be created. I think that through these activities, in the next two or three years, we will shut down the boiler house in Skerlićeva", said Golubović.
Katana, however, points out that heating has been talked about for thirty years in Pljevlja and that every government is trying to buy time with that story.
"We are asking for urgent action to be taken to reduce pollution, because our health is seriously threatened by the operation of the boiler house. I guess the health of the citizens should have been a priority of the local government," she pointed out.
Powdery substances 27 times more than allowed, carbon monoxide ten times, sulfur dioxide three times...
In the report on the examination of harmful and dangerous substances in the waste gas produced in the process of burning solid fuel, which was carried out by CETI in the last few years, and which Ilda Katana received on the basis of the Law on Free Access to Information, it is stated that the boiler plant during operation emitted powdery substances and carbon monoxide above the tolerance limit, i.e. the permitted excess of 250 percent.
In the 2019 and 2017 reports, the average half-hourly values of particulate matter were 826,1 micrograms per cubic meter, which is 27,5 times higher than the prescribed limit of 30 micrograms.
The reports also say that sulfur dioxide was measured at a concentration of more than 3.200 micrograms per cubic meter, which is more than three times the prescribed limit of 1.000 micrograms.
And the average half-hourly concentration of carbon monoxide amounted to 1588,8 micrograms per cubic meter, or more than ten times above the prescribed limit value of 150 micrograms.
An excess of nitrogen dioxide was also registered, as well as the average half-hourly value of arsenic.
The situation was somewhat more favorable in 2020, but even during the measurements at that time, the measured values were several times above the prescribed limit values.
For the previous year, Ilda Katana says that she has not yet received the data.
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