Almost 30 years have passed since a group of experts made a professional expertise with a proposal for measures to revitalize and save Port Milena, but the canal is still the largest septic tank in the country.
The experts, headed by the professor of the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Belgrade, dr Dragan Rudić, in mid-June 1993, they visited the entire length of Port Milena, the gravitating pools and the peripheral channels of the "Bajo Sekulić" salt pan, as well as the right bank of Bojana in the zone where its bed approaches to about 1,5 km from the nearest channel of the salt pan.
"After a tour of the field and discussions with several experts we had the opportunity to meet during our visit, as well as an analysis of the existing documentation related to the hydraulic and hydrotechnical problems of the canal, we propose a ban on the discharge of city wastewater into Port Milen, controlled dredging of its mouth and the construction of water intakes at Bojani, i.e. injecting a certain amount of water from the river into the canal", says the expertise that "Vijesti" had access to.
Apart from occasional dredging, nothing from the expertise has been implemented so far.
After almost a decade, Ulcinj is waiting for the final implementation of the project to build a sewerage network for four Ulcinj settlements, from which waste water, via the river Bratica, flows into Port Milena near the Old Bridge. This would partially alleviate the environmental problem of the canal that bears the name of the latter Montenegrin queen, but experts still say that a lot of work and effort will be needed to restore Port Milena to at least part of its former glory and to revive the forgotten Calimeras that made it recognizable on all the tourist maps of Europe. .
Contaminants known
Apart from Rudić, Dr. Sava Petković, M.Sc Ivan Rovčanin, M.Sc Nikola Karisik and Ulcinjani, engineer Lazar Ban and a veterinarian Dzelal Hodzic.
The expertise points out that the Brsatica stream, which flows into the canal downstream from the bridge, is an open sewage collector that collects waste water from all the houses located along it. It is noted that because of this, at the mouth of the island into the channel, the water is extremely polluted, which, in addition to visual observation, can also be felt because unpleasant odors spread in that area.
"The second major polluter of Port Milena is the hotel complex on the left bank of the canal, which discharges its waste water directly into the canal through a closed sewer collector. It is obvious that within the framework of solving the communal problems of Ulcinj, measures must be urgently taken to collect all the waste water that is now flowing into the canal and bring it to the existing pumping station, located on the right bank of Port Milena in the immediate vicinity of its mouth into the sea ”, reads the analysis.
It is noted that the problem could be easily solved if a 1,5-kilometer long pipeline was extended from the pumping station to the sea.
"However, it is incomprehensible that due to some unresolved property-legal relations, the operation of the pumping station is completely disabled, even though huge funds have been invested in the entire system. It is obvious that for the final solution to the problem of the discharge of city wastewater, a much more energetic engagement of the relevant municipal and republican institutions and experts is needed," the analysis reads.
How right the experts were is also shown by the fact that three decades after the expertise was drawn up, the current local government is trying, as part of the project to build a sewage network for four settlements in Ulcinj, to enable a pipeline that leads 1,5 kilometers into the sea. According to information from the Municipality, it can soon be expected that the pipeline, which has been blocked for years, will finally be operational.
Wild construction worsened the situation
The experts did not deal with private buildings on the shores of Port Milena, because there were probably an insignificant number of them then. Meanwhile, dozens of buildings and hotels have been built on both sides of the canal, most of which discharge wastewater into the canal. With the construction of those buildings and the expansion of the yard by filling in earth and rubble, the area of the Port Milena Ulcinj canal has been reduced by 62 thousand square meters in the last half century, and its banks in the last two kilometers towards the mouth are closer by 31 meters on average.
The exchange of usurpation of state property is evidenced by the research of the company "Etalon geo office" from Danilovgrad from a few years ago, into which "Vijesti" had an insight.
"News" confirmed that the artificially created squares of land are registered with the Government in the cadastral books. That is, the owners of the surrounding estates and houses are not the owners, but only the users of the filled area.
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.
The expertise further states that one of the measures for the revitalization of the channel is controlled dredging, which could provide the necessary width and depth in the mouth area. The recommendation of the experts was respected by the local authorities only to the extreme extent - when the channel would be completely filled with sand and cut off from the sea.
"Dredging should be understood as a permanent measure because the mouth of the channel into the sea is constantly exposed to being filled with sediment because Cape Đerana represents a natural obstacle for further transport of sediment along the coast. Therefore, it is natural that sediment will be deposited at its root, right in the mouth area", states the analysis of the condition of the once attractive canal, which reminds some experts in length and width of the Grand Canal in Venice.
Also, the recommendations of the experts regarding the construction of a water intake on Bojana, so that fresh water would flow into the canal, which would serve for its purification, were not heeded.
In the early XNUMXs, the water intake was designed and executed by team member Lazo Ban, the chief engineer of the saltworks at the time, but there were not enough financial resources to implement such a plan.
"It seems that for the final solution of the revitalization of the canal, it would be necessary to reconsider the possibility of its connection with Bojana. By establishing a continuous flow along the entire length, the preconditions for the exuberant development of flora and fauna, for which Port Milena was once widely known, would be re-created," says the expert.
It is estimated that in conditions of continuous water flow, preconditions for the formation of a natural pond would also be created, the economic effects of which could fully justify the entire investment.
Port Milena was once the largest natural fish hatchery on the Adriatic.
While the expertise gathered dust in the municipal drawers, Port Milena continued to deteriorate and remained on the margins of all investment investments - there was neither money nor will for the Montenegrin Grand Canal, and that is the case even today.
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