The Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations in the Council of Ministers and the association “Green team” Novi Grad and Aarhus Center Sarajevo sent a complaint against Croatia to the Secretariat of the Berne Convention at the Council of Europe due to activities on the establishment of a Center for the disposal of radioactive waste at Trgovska Gora on the very border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This was confirmed by Mario Crnković, president of the “Green Team” Association, pointing out that this is another international step in the fight against Croatia’s intention to build a storage facility for nuclear waste at a location that would endanger the Una basin and the citizens in that area.
“The application to the Berne Convention refers to the protection of wild species, natural habitats and the ecosystem of the Una River. So far, the mechanisms of the Espo and Aarhus Conventions, which relate to cross-border impact assessment, access to information and public participation, have already been activated,” said Crnković for Srna.
If radioactive waste is planned a kilometer or two from the Una river and Bosnia and Herzegovina, says Crnković, then no one has the right to say that it is not a problem of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“We have said from the beginning that the Trgovska Gora case is not a local issue, although it took a long time for it to reach the international level. A nuclear facility in the border area is anything but a harmless thing. This is a question of elementary human rights, good neighborly relations, health, nature and life without imposed risks to the lives of people along the Una,” Crnković said.
He states that the Berne Convention now opens another important question – what happens to nature, species and habitats, if such a project continues without complete and verifiable research.
According to him, the Una without a nuclear facility has its own problems, but despite that it is a living river and one of the most valuable in Europe.
“People live with it, a whole world lives in it and around it, which cannot be reduced to a few bureaucratic sentences or well-worn platitudes in the style of ‘we work in a style with the best world practices’. On the ground, we see the application of somewhat different practices compared to what should be done,” stated Crnković.
Crnković invited Croatia to show hydrogeological research, the movement of groundwater, possible routes of contamination, the state of species and habitats.
“You can’t take our word for it when it comes to radioactive waste,” he points out.
He pointed out that the competent authorities from Croatia have not given sufficiently clear, complete and publicly verifiable answers about the possible impacts of the project on the Una river basin at any stage.
He explained that everything is being adapted to push the radioactive waste to the border, and that it is particularly controversial that activities around the Čerkezovac location continue, even though BiH and the affected communities still do not have full insight into all the data needed for a serious risk assessment.
“When we add to that that this is essentially the result of a political decision from the period 1997-1999, then everything is clear. For years we have been hearing assurances from the authorities in Croatia that they will do everything according to the best international practices, but on the ground it is something else. They openly said that they would do the study in a way that justifies the location. Paper does not protect the river. Paper does not protect people,” says Crnković.
He stated that the Secretariat of the Berne Convention is required to register the application, examine it and take the steps foreseen by the mechanisms of the Convention.
“We expect that additional information will be requested from Croatia and that the case of Trgovska Gora is viewed as a serious cross-border issue of nature protection. It is our right, obligation and duty to use every available mechanism to defend the Una river basin, to defend all of us who live here. We have neither spare Una nor spare lives to be able to ignore the threat of radioactive and other hazardous waste on Trgovska Gora,” Crnković pointed out.
On May 14, BiH and Croatia met in Geneva before the Committee of the Espo Convention on Transboundary Pollution, i.e. in connection with the planned construction of a nuclear waste storage facility on Trgovska Gora.
Borislav Bojić, the coordinator of the BiH Expert Team for Trgovska Gora, then stated that Croatia did not have answers to the multitude of questions it needed to answer when it comes to the Espo Convention, and that it did not comply with all that the convention provides.
Let us remind you that Croatia plans to store radioactive waste from the “Krško” Nuclear Power Plant, as well as existing institutional waste, at the Trgovska gora location in the municipality of Dvor, right on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nezavisne writes.
