At the beginning of May at the edges of the river bed of Jala River in the settlement of Slavinovici in Tuzla were discovered oil spills, after which was raised the question whether Tuzla will become famous for the “black gold”, besides coal and salt. Currently, no one has the official response to this question since the detailed research regarding this topic has not been performed yet.
Certain research on oil were conducted periodically from 1898 to 1992 in the area of Tuzla, however, a more significant research that would lead to eventual exploitation was never conducted.
The professional staff of the Agency for Sava River Basin conducted a detailed analysis of samples from Jala River in the past few days, and the official and complete results are expected in the upcoming days.
“Oil spills were not recorded in the water stream during the process of sampling, but only on the riverbank, at 10-15 centimeters above the water level. The spills look like a bitumen mass and they were located on every 3-5 meters on 500 to 800 meters long section,” explained Nezafeta Sejdic, Head of the Sector for Laboratory of Water in the Agency for Sava River Basin.
“Targeted screening analysis on GC / MS was conducted on the samples in order to determine their qualitative composition. They discovered the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and mineral oil in the samples. The concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons will be determined within the next couple of days,” stated Sejdic.
Oil spills appeared on the section where gas stations are not present nor other business entities that could cause contamination by oil products, but the influence of settlements of Gornja Tuzla and Simin Han, or urban waste waters, is only present.
“We believe that it would be good to examine soil samples for further analysis,” said Sejdic.
Cantonal Water Inspector Hidajet Ribic said that they will be able to talk about this case in detail only after the full results of the analysis.
(Source: A. K./Klix.ba)
