A project that is nearing completion and two to be announced in the near future promise better days for Port Milena, but a well-known environmentalist from Ulcinj Dzelal Hodzic claims that this is not enough to restore even a little of its former glory to the once largest fish hatchery in the Mediterranean.
The project to build a sewage system for four Ulcinj settlements, Donja Bratica, Bijela Gora, Totoši and Kodre, worth almost five million euros, has entered the final phase. Hodžić said that this is extremely important for the whole city, the development of tourism, but also for Port Milena, because the discharge of feces from Bratica into the canal will stop, since all four settlements, which were without a regulated sewage network, more or less gravitated to the river. .
"It seems to me that someone from the former local government said that with the implementation of that project, the situation in Port Milena will be 50-70 percent better. Of course, these are nonsense and lay political stories that we have been listening to for more than 30 years and because of which Ulcinj is where it is today - impoverished and neglected, and after Pljevalj probably the most exploited municipality in the country," Hodžić told "Vijesta".
He stated that the project does not foresee the settlement of Đerane, which gravitates towards Port Mileni, as well as most of the houses built on the very banks of the canal.
He welcomed the announcement that the collector on Cape Djerane will soon be unblocked, which should also contribute to cleaner water in Port Milena.
"That's good news because the faeces will go about a kilometer and a half into the sea with the collector. Certainly, it is also very important for Port Milena", said Hodžić.
He reminded that this problem could have been solved more than 15 years ago when he formed a team that could patch the resulting crack.
"We did not encounter the understanding of the local authorities at the time. I don't know why, maybe because I initiated the solution even though it was not important at all, it was important that the collector be trained, but in vain".
Collector sanction, as announced by the Acting Secretary for Investments Minir Karamanaga, should soon start as a priority activity of the contractor on the implementation of the water supply and waste water drainage project, worth almost 20 million euros. The ceremony for the start of work on that project was announced for March 31.
Hodžić also criticized the current local government "because they don't invite him to attend meetings whose topic is solving problems at Port Milena".
"Who can know better how to solve these problems in the right way than us Ulcinians. Dželal Hodžić has been present at Port Milena for more than half a century, both when it was a symbol of the city and since when it became a problem".
President of the Municipality of Ulcinj Omer Bajraktari and executive director of the Environmental Protection Fund of Montenegro (Eco Fund) Drasko Boljević they recently signed a Memorandum of Cooperation, which planned cooperation on the implementation of joint projects and activities, the ultimate goal of which is to improve the quality of life and environmental protection and energy efficiency in Ulcinj and Montenegro. The main goal of signing the Memorandum is to organize joint actions to clean the Port Milena canal, which the Eco-Fund and the Municipality of Ulcinj will include in their work programs this year. It was agreed that the Municipality of Ulcinj will submit all the necessary documentation to the Eco-Fund in order to start the preparation of the action in a timely manner...
Hodžić: Wrong approach, three phases are necessary
Hodžić claims that this is the wrong approach to solving the problem.
"Port Milena is neither a political nor a mechanical issue, but rather an expert issue par excellence. How will they clean the channel, from which side will they start...? That requires a project, an expert one".
Hodžić compared Port Milena to a patient who is still alive but seriously ill from several diseases.
"That can't be solved by one doctor, right? A council of specialists of all professions is needed to determine the diagnosis. After that comes therapy and eventual recovery. Well, Port Milena needs such a council, a commission of experts from all professions that will locate and identify all problems and dynamics and ways to solve them effectively. The commission must include people from Ulcinj - the civil sector, fishermen, locals..."
Hodžić added that everyone who believes that injecting fresh water alone will solve all problems is wrong.
"Probably some, but not all. What are we going to do with the concrete and metal structures under both bridges, do they think that the absence of new feces in certain carts will remove the accumulated fecal sediment from the bottom, which is now who knows how deep. It's like the mentioned case about the sick patient - maybe the surgeon will successfully operate on his heart, but his kidneys, lungs, and blood flow remain sick..."
Hodžić is of the opinion that the situation in Port Milena should be resolved in three phases.
"The first phase from the confluence to the Old Bridge, the second from the Old Bridge to the New Bridge and the third from the New Bridge to the end. All those parts of the channel have common problems, but also many divergent ones".
"Vijesti" announced two years ago that the water flow of Port Milena has been significantly narrowed in the last few decades, since about 6 hectares of land on the banks of the canal have been usurped.
"Due to the construction of buildings and the expansion of the courtyard, the filling of earth and rubble, the area of the Ulcinj Port Milena canal has been reduced by 62 thousand square meters in the last half century, and its shores in the last two kilometers towards the mouth are closer by 31 meters on average", according to the company's research "Etalon geo office" from Danilovgrad, which "Vijesti" had access to.
The total market value of the land, according to that research, created by uncontrolled filling, today ranges between 10 and 20 million euros.
"News" then confirmed that the artificially created squares of land are registered with the Government in the cadastral books, that is, that the owners of the surrounding estates and houses are not the owners, but only the users of the filled area...
Hodžić said that the state and municipal institutions would have to react urgently here as well.
"And to determine the real borders of the canals that once existed, not found".
Objects built on the surface that once belonged to the waterway of the canal have a note in the real estate register - construction on someone else's land.
If there was no Porat, there would hardly be Solana
The creation of the port and canal was preceded by the realization of a large state project for the draining of Lake Zoganj.
Captain Dinko Franetović stated in his book that in 1881, engineer Josip Slade developed a project to drain Lake Zoganj, because the water level in it fluctuated widely and constantly threatened agricultural production.
As Franetović wrote, the following year the state senate in Cetinje decided to allocate 10.000 forints for the realization of that project, but the works did not take place. That is why Prince Nikola hired the Russian engineer Vladimir Varman in 1885, who designed and dug a zigzag channel 4,5 kilometers long, from the lake to the sea near Cape Đerana.
After three years, the manager of the coast, Duke Simo Popović, very successfully carried out the first cleaning of the canal.
The second cleaning was carried out by engineer Marko Đukanović, but he allegedly made a big mistake - he deepened the channel and straightened it in one place, so that after that the sea penetrated and caused irreparable damage to the arable land.
After the great floods of 1896 and the spilling of Bojana into Lake Zogan and the canal, which was deepened and expanded as a result, the port of Đerane, or Port Milena, was created.
Due to occasional overflows, Bojana, the harbor and the canal were in navigable condition until 1930.
After the saltworks were built in 1934, for the safety of which an embankment was built along Bojana, the purification of the harbor and canal with river water stopped. Since then, until 1950, the mouth of the Milena canal was maintained by the continuous operation of one dredger...
Porat, as the people of Ulcinj call it for short, is named after the last Montenegrin queen from the Petrović dynasty.
"It's more of a shame for the state that it has been turned into a sewer and that it is in the state it is in." "If it wasn't for Milena, there would hardly be Solana," said Hodžić.
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