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Bosnia Worried about Croatia’s Plans for Nuclear Waste Disposal Site

By 23 April 2017

The planned location is very near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the inhabitants of towns and villages near the Una river are worried because Croatia has not given up on plans to construct a radioactive and nuclear waste disposal site at the Trgovska Gora location, reports Novi List on April 23, 2017.

According to the Bosnian daily “Dnevni Avaz”, two years ago municipalities of Novi Grad, Cazin, Velika Kladuša, Bužim, Kostajnica and Bosanska Krupa jointly stated their opposition to the construction of the facility in the municipality of Dvor in Croatia. Although they received political support from higher levels of Bosnian government, there have been no concrete results. The municipalities requested from state authorities to urgently launch activities to halt the construction of the facility.

The Bosnian State Regulatory Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety (DRARNS) has information that Croatia has not given up on the implementation of the National Programme for the Implementation of the Radioactive Waste Strategy, which foresees Trgovska Gora as a suitable nuclear waste disposal site.

The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina previously formed a working group to deal with the issue. Jasmin Emrić, a member of the Bosnian Parliament, said he was concerned about what the authorities in Croatia were doing. “They have published comments on the environmental impact assessment study, but they did not include all of our remarks, and we clearly stated that we did not want the radioactive and nuclear waste to be deposited at the Trgovska Gora. The Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina has adopted a resolution opposing the construction of the facility,” said Emrić.

Nikola Arbutina, the Mayor of the Municipality of Dvor in Croatia, confirmed that they were also against the construction of the nuclear waste disposal site, adding that all investments in his municipality had stopped after it was announced that the project might go ahead. “Investors have been fleeing this town for years, and no one is buying any real estate,” said Arbutina.

The Dvor Municipality, just like the municipalities on the Bosnian’s side of the border, is afraid of environmental pollution, and in particular of the potential impact of radioactive waste on the Una river basin.

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