The expert team for monitoring the situation and activities related to the issue of disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel on Trgovska gora is visiting the location of Cerkezovac, in Dvor na Uni in the Republic of Croatia.
This is the first official visit, ie a tour of this location where a landfill for the disposal of nuclear waste from the Krsko Nuclear Power Plant should be built.
An agreement on the departure of experts from BiH to Croatia, who will be in charge of monitoring the activities of Croatian colleagues on this issue as much as possible, was reached in early July at meetings with representatives of the Fund for Financing the Decommissioning and Disposal of Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel.
Dizdarevic explained that no special permits from higher levels are needed for this departure and that the agreement is for experts from BiH to come to Trgovska Gora, more precisely to the facilities near the former barracks Cerkezovac, to see what condition they are in and establish whether and what was done.
“For now, a company has been chosen for certain hydrogeological research, and it will be important for us, if and when they start taking samples, so we can get the consent for our geologists to be present when they take soil samples,” Dizdarevic told.
He pointed out that seismologists will also play a very important role in further work due to frequent earthquakes in the narrower and wider area, and that Croatia has hired its experts to monitor the seismological situation.
“Some stations have been installed to monitor this. I think that this will also be discussed at the round table, which could be held in Banja Luka in September or October, ” said Dizdarevic, who is also the deputy director of the Regulatory Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety of BiH.
While speaking about some future steps, when sampling starts at that location, Dizdarevic emphasized that they will then need certain permits so that, when they start with boring, they will be on the spot.
“We have already asked the higher levels of government in BiH to engage in order to get permits to attend the sampling if the process of boring started,” said Dizdarevic, adding that even the planned well is deeper than 150 meters.
Also, he said he expects to receive all the necessary permits, noting that Croatia is not obliged to approve it, BHRT writes.
Earlier in 2019, the government of the Republika Srpska entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted a decision proclaiming territory along the Una river as a nature park and the entity’s minister of Physical Planning and Environment, Srebrenka Golić, explained that this was a measure to prevent Croatia from building a nuclear waste depot on Trgovska Gora in Dvor municipality, which is in the near vicinity of the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The entity’s Una Nature Park runs adjacent to the Una National Park in the Federation entity and now the river’s basin on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s side is a single protected area.
“We want to send a clear message to Croatian authorities that they cannot do that (construct a nuclear waste storage plant) to a neighbouring country because in that area is both a nature and a national park. We are doing that so (Croatia) starts looking for another site that is not populated and does not jeopardise a living environment, and not on the border of a neighbouring country,” Golić told reporters in Banja Luka.
Member of Parliament Saša Magazinović (Green Party) told the Fena news agency that this is necessary to put extra pressure ahead of a meeting between Croatian and Slovenian officials at the end of September to discuss the disposal of nuclear waste from the Krško nuclear power plant, Hina reports.
What I am afraid of, and this is mentioned in passing in some official Croatian documents, is that Trgovska Gora will not only be used to dispose of waste from Krsko but that it could turn into a depot for European nuclear waste. Some Croatian documents even note that that would be a cost-efficient project, Magazinović said.
