Croatia has not yet definitely decided to start dumping its radioactive waste near the border with Bosnia, but Bosnian officials are worried as there is a strong possibility it might happen and because Croatia is not responding to any of Bosnia’s complaints about the plan.
Bosnia requested in March that Croatia refrains from using Trgovska Gora, an area near the border between the two countries, to store radioactive and nuclear waste and that it finds another adequate area within its own territory to do so.
Trgovska Gora is located just north of the border, near the Bosnian town of Novi Grad. Croatia adopted strategic documents at the end of last year which name that area as a potential location for dumping nuclear waste.
This information caused concern among residents of Novi Grad, who told N1 in November last year the decision was “scandalous.”
Since Croatia owns half of the Krsko power plant in Slovenia, the country needs to take over half of the nuclear waste from that power plant by 2023.
“Taking into account that we are talking about very shaky ground which is rich with groundwater and that it is close to where the river Una flows which flows through nine municipalities populated by about 230 thousand people, it is a legitimate concern that such a move by Croatia would jeopardize the livelihood of those people, who work in agriculture and sustainable tourism there,” the RS Ministry Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology said on Monday.
DECISION ON DISPOSING OF NUCLEAR WASTE AT BORDER WITH BOSNIA NOT MADE
Authorities in Croatia have not decided to dispose of low- and medium-level radioactive waste at Trgovska Gora near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“According to conclusions from the 12th session of the Interstate Commission in charge of monitoring implementation of the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Government of the Republic of Slovenia on the Regulation of Status and Other Legal Relations Regarding the Investment, Use and Dismantling of Nuclear Power Plant Krško, the Coordination Committee will notify heads of the Croatian and Slovenian delegations to the Interstate Commission if they have found a possible solution related to the common disposal of low- and medium-level radioactive waste,” reports the Croatian Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy.
The Ministry points out that the next meeting of the Coordination Committee is planned for August 2019 and a session of the Interstate Commission, which will be hosted by the Slovenian side, for September 2019, and adds that the public will be timely informed about any further activities.
For the past two years, Croatia has been considering building a nuclear waste disposal site at the border with BiH and the Croatian media have reported that a definitive decision in favour of the project was made, but the latter has been denied by the information supplied by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy.
Source: N1/srna
