With the new year in Visegrad, the decades-long problem of floating waste has been activated. After the water level rose, in the previous days, one of the chains above the Visegrad Hydroelectric Power Plant burst, set up with the aim of stopping a huge amount of waste, RTRS writes.
By breaking the upper chain, about three to four thousand cubic meters of waste reached the dam of the Hydroelectric Power Plant Višegrad, which endangered the production of electricity.
”This is a decades-long problem our company. As the last link in the chain, we are left to fight this problem on our own. Our predictions and findings are not optimistic. In the upper part of the Drina River, but also its tributaries, the situation is not good at all. According to our estimates, it is about tens of thousands of cubic meters of waste that we do not know how we will deal with all this on our own,” says Nedeljko Perisic, director of the HPP on the Drina.
Unofficially, RTRS learns that the situation is no better at the Potpec dam near Priboj, where due to the release of the dam, all waste would reach the Visegrad River.
”We have a case and it remains for us to solve this with our own forces and the forces of the companies we will hire, and we hope to have the help of our institutions and countries from which this floating waste comes,” adds Perisic. During the day, with great effort, the workers of HPP Višegrad managed to repair the sprocket and stop the flow of waste.”
Annually, the specialized team of HPP Visegrad removes from six to eight thousand cubic meters of floating waste from the Drina River. It is high time that all competent institutions get involved in solving this problem, which threatens to cause an ecological catastrophe.