New footage from the MANS Research Center shows that instead of taking the excavated construction waste to the intended location, the CRBC illegally deposited this waste on agricultural land along the Drcka River, a tributary of the Tara River. In that part, the coast of Drcka was devastated by sand and stones.
The footage also shows that the contractor has installed waste water drainage channels directly into the Drcka River and further into Tara in at least two locations. No waste water treatment devices were observed on these canals.
The environmental impact assessment report on this location does not envisage the opening of a landfill, and in addition, this document "strictly prohibits the dumping of excess material from excavations in stream and river beds on river banks and agricultural land."
MANS warns that without clearly established responsibility, it cannot be expected to end what they consider to be the devastation of Tara:
"In the Government of Montenegro, specifically in the departmental ministry, environmental protection, they are not interested in implementing the laws and regulations of this country, which practically sends a message to the CRBC - that they will give it a completely free hand to do what it wants in the field what he really wants. What is also a big problem, we cannot know if any inspection has done anything when it comes to the protection of Tara and the protection of the nature around the construction site, because I will remind that the complete inspection supervision when it comes to the execution of works on the highway was declared a state secret by the state," said Dejan Milovac from MANS.
The discovery of the new landfill comes just a few days after a UNESCO report criticizing the construction of a highway in the bed of the protected Tara River, with a message to the authorities that they urgently need to assess the impact of construction works on the ecological status of the river, and come up with a plan for remediation and prevention of more serious consequences the river downstream.
MANS believes that the UNESCO report, but also the previous warnings and recommendations from Brussels, have not yielded results for now:
"It means that not only do we have a new landfill that we noted, but also at the existing landfills, which MANS talked about last year, work is also continuing, that is, new material is being deposited, which is contrary to the population. Those were the recommendations and the European Parliament and their resolutions, the European Commission in the report on Montenegro," Milovac said.
Even after a week, the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism did not comment on the assessment of the devastation of Tara presented in the UNESCO report.
Bonus video:
