ENVIRONMENT-YUGOSLAVIA: Water That is not for Drinking

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jan 28 2003 (IPS) - More than 100,000 people from the central Serbian town of Kraljevo are depending on drinking water supplied by trucks or buy bottled water. The reason: the level of carbolic acid (phenol) in the town’s waterworks has risen to 60 times higher than normal.

When analyses earlier this month showed the presence of dangerously high proportions of acid in the Ibar river that supplies water processed in the Kraljevo waterworks, fears were fanned that it was the case of deliberate poisoning.

Kraljevo lies half way between the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade and Pristina, capital of the southern province of Kosovo, home of some two million ethnic Albanians. The Ibar river springs in Kosovo and runs north into Serbia proper.

Experts warned that although it is removed from human organism within 24 hours, phenol might have long time effect on skin, kidneys and liver.

Serbian Vice Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic said last week: "Environmental accidents know no borders. Ibar and its tributaries are dangerous for all who live near them, regardless of their ethnicity."

Covic visited Kosovo last week accompanied by a group of health and environment experts from Belgrade. He is in charge of contacts with the United Nations administration in Kosovo (UNMIK). That is the only, indirect way of communication between Belgrade and Pristina.

The UN administers Kosovo since June 1999, after the 11 weeks of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bombing campaign against Serbia, bigger sister of Montenegro in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The air raids were undertaken due to the repressive politics of former leader Slobodan Milosevic against ethnic Albanians. Kosovo wanted and still wants independence from FRY.

According to Covic and the group of experts, phenol came from the reservoirs around the big thermal power plant Obilic, near Pristina.

It is out of use for more than ten years, but still has giant reservoirs containing 800 tons of raw phenol and 16,000 tons of diluted carbolic acid. They were used in coal processing for the plant, but never properly stored when the plant shut down.

"Apparently, UNMIK was not aware of what was around Obilic," said Milorad Moracic, an expert who visited the site.

"We analysed tributary rivers and found out that the river Sitnica is almost dead with 300 times higher level of phenol than normal, while the waterworks of the town of Vucitrn was also contaminated. What is more dangerous is the fact that phenol seemed to have entered underground waters, " he added.

UNMIK reactions so far were mild. Head of Belgrade UNMIK office Paul Macklenburg said: "Yugoslav regulations in the field were too strict".

"They are not in accordance with European laws," he added. Yugoslav laws allow only one micrograms of phenol in drinking water.

Environment experts argue that the simple lack of money can be blamed for such an attitude.

"They analysed, they gave their opinion and that was that. No solution," said toxicologist Milan Pavlica from the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade. "But the solution will take millions and millions of dollars, as nothing was done in the field for more than a decade," he added.

The problem of the central Serbian town of Kraljevo was only the tip of the iceberg of problems regarding waterworks in Serbia, experts warned.

Their three-year old study ‘Drinking Water Supplies for Population in Serbia’ showed that waterworks systems all over the country remain shabby and dangerous, even in Belgrade, the capital.

A third of waterworks in Serbian towns pose risk to human health due to micro-biological reasons, one in four waterworks is hazardous because of the physical or chemical contamination, while one in five combines the two problems.

"Rivers and underground waters in Serbia are not separated from the rest of the world," said Milan Simic, author of the study. It still remains in the drawers of the relevant ministries.

"In the past years, our rivers had cyanide coming via the Danube from Romania, pesticides in Sava coming from Slovenia and Croatia and many other things. It’s high time to stop pushing the problem under the carpet, but think how we can solve the problem on hand."