The locals of the Nikšić settlements of Straševina and Kličevo will tonight, as they announced, block the Nikšić - Podgorica main road, near the Budoš tunnel, from 19:20 to XNUMX:XNUMX, due to disputed material deposited on private and state property in Straševina, which they claim is grit brought from Bijela.
Although it has been established that it is a non-dangerous material, they are asking for it to be moved, as well as to determine how it got there and on whose orders, and each new blockade will be half an hour longer, so until Thursday the blockade will last an hour and a half. , and on Friday evening for two hours.
At the beginning of August, the locals held a warning protest due to, as they said at the time, the fact that over 150 trucks of waste from Bijela had been unloaded in the settlement of Straševina. Waste is stored in the area next to the Nikšić-Podgorica railway, partly on state land, which belongs to the Railway Infrastructure of Montenegro, and partly on private land, as well as in a location below Trebjesa. Neither the locals nor from the Railway Infrastructure of Montenegro were familiar with the deposited material. According to the locals, apart from Straševina, the material was also deposited under Trebjesa.
The analysis by the Center for Ecotoxicological Testing (CETI), which took the samples on August 2, at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Ecological Inspection, showed that it was waste "generated by physical and mechanical surface treatment of metals and plastics and sandblasting", and that he is not dangerous.
"We stand by our demand that the waste be removed and ask the environmental agencies to explain the difference between hazardous and non-hazardous grit and how that waste is treated. We also ask that they explain to us who issued the decision that the material leaves the shipyard and that, without our consent and knowledge, it is partly stored on private property. Since, as CETI says, it is a question of non-hazardous waste, let them return it to where it came from, in Bijela, and let them discuss there what to do with it," he told "Vijesta" Milan Nikcevic.
As he pointed out, he will block the road until the Directorate for Inspection Affairs issues a decision for waste removal.
"The legal order in Montenegro is the Law on Waste Management, which regulates the types and classification of waste, planning, conditions and methods of waste management, as well as other issues of importance for waste management. This Law also prescribes who supervises its implementation. For the past 20 or more days, no one from the competent authorities has been found to react, so in that way they can be considered as accomplices in an illegal business, to which the locals are reacting", said local Vujadin Nikčević, a lawyer by profession, to "Vijestima".
As he pointed out, the analyzes carried out in the part of the nature of waste do not diminish the responsibility of the competent authorities, considering the fact that the mentioned law clearly prescribes the entire procedure, from the collection and transportation of waste to its disposal.
"The agricultural land on which the waste from Bijela was deposited could not be a landfill, so several provisions of the Law on Waste Management were violated in this way, and in all the mentioned actions there are elements of criminal acts, which, we hope, will be dealt with within the scope of their powers and competent prosecutor's offices", Nikčević pointed out.
Locals have filed a complaint against an unknown perpetrator due to the dumping of waste, and the Municipality of Nikšić has appealed to the competent state authorities to protect the private property of the residents of Straševina, which is suspected to be endangered by the "disposal of hazardous waste".
From the Directorate for Inspection Affairs, when asked by "Vijesti" whether they have issued a decision to remove the mentioned material, if they have, to whom the decision was issued and by what deadline, and if not, whether they intend to issue a decision on the removal of the mentioned material, answered:
"Since the inspection procedure is still ongoing, we are not able to provide you with answers to the sent questions, but after the inspection procedure is over, you will receive complete answers to your questions, which we believe will be during tomorrow (today's) day".
It was previously reported to the media that neither the Municipalities nor the Environmental Protection Agency issued consent for the disposal of any type of waste. The Police Administration announced that, acting on a citizen's report, they found out that employees of a company from Nikšić were depositing and disposing.
As part of the remediation project from the former Bijela shipyard from 2018 to 2023, about 68.000 tons of grit were exported. It is a project financed by the World Bank and implemented by the French company Valgo. In the middle of last year, the public was informed that all quantities of hazardous waste from the shipyard had been exported, as well as that the soil contaminated with grit would also end up outside the borders of Montenegro.
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