The area of ​​the former Shipyard cleaned of grit after more than 40 years

The general cargo ship "Shannon River", which sails under the Panamanian flag, sailed from Bijela today, with the last quantities of grit to the landfill in Seville.

As announced by the Environmental Protection Agency, after more than 40 years, the area of ​​the former Brodogradilis was cleaned of grit.

The project "Management of industrial waste and cleaning" is implemented by the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism and the Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare from the loan of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, while the Environmental Protection Agency (AZZŽS) is in charge of implementation.

"With the goal of the project related to the final rehabilitation and remediation of the four identified so-called "black ecological spots", in terms of priority and urgency, the immediate start and remediation of pollution in the Adriatic shipyard Bijela was set as an absolute priority in the implementation of the Project, primarily for the reason that it is about a location on the sea coast in the Bay of Kotor," states the AZZŽS announcement.

Acting director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Milan Gazdić, also visited the location today.

The AZZŽS state that after the preparation of the remediation project and the international tender, the contract with the Contractor, Valgo SA, was signed on June 4, 2018. As a result, it added, 62.425,3 tons of grit have been exported so far out of a total of 68.073,3 tons of grit. Finally, with a cargo of about 6.000 tons of grit and the departure of the ship "Shannon River", the last quantities of grit were exported.

"Furthermore, it is important to mention that during the Project, 400 tons of oily waste, 23.68 tons of asbestos, 72 tons of oily solid waste and one container of large bags containing grit were exported. In addition to part of the grit, the total overlooked amount of contaminated land amounts to 57.710 tons, of which 7.500 tons were exported on January 27.01.2022, XNUMX to Spain," the announcement states.

Reasons for delays and challenges

Although the remediation works were supposed to be completed by October 22, 2020, they were delayed due to, as stated in the announcement, the refusal of the Spanish authorities to issue new permits regarding the import of hazardous waste, and additionally, due to the pandemic caused by COVID -19.

"After a 20-month export freeze, the export of grit was restarted on May 05, 2021, after the Spanish authorities issued a permit for the import of 30.000 tons of hazardous grit. In addition to this issued permit, the Spanish authorities in May 2021 also issued a permit for the import of 40.000 tons of contaminated soil. Based on that positive progress related to the securing of permits for the import of grit and contaminated soil to Spain, the contractor submitted a new dynamic plan, according to which it was then foreseen that all the waste would be exported by the end of October 2021, and the finalization of rehabilitation (handover of works) by the end of March 2022. However, the export of grit stopped again in mid-July 2021, since the Contractor suspended further exports due to price changes on the global market, which is a consequence of global events and crises caused by the pandemic of COVID-19. Towards the achievement of the goal, in this sense, new unit prices for the transport and disposal of waste were agreed, so the export resumed on 24.01.2022. years".

The AZZŽS state that dso far, 11.453,763.54 euros have been spent on the completed works.

"Started in July 2018, the process of ecological remediation of the area of ​​the former shipyard Bijela, company Valgo SA, France, is carried out in the value of 23 million euros", it was announced.

He adds that if the contractor continues at this pace, it is quite certain that the works will be completed by the end of June, since in the last 15 days, about 20.000 tons of hazardous waste have been exported, which is the first time that this has happened since the beginning of the works, i.e. that such a large amount of hazardous waste was exported in such a short period of time.

"Taking into account the achieved results, we believe that we will be able to hand over the clean location to the concessionaire for management in the foreseeable future," concludes the statement of the AZZŽS.