ZAGREB, April 5, 2018 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Thursday that the government had reacted promptly to the environmental disaster in Slavonski Brod and that an investigation would show how the water in area had been polluted by hydrocarbons. "We regret this incident. An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the pollution, namely the cause of the oil leakage from the pipeline which the Crodux company was testing," the prime minister said.
The Crodux company, which was working on the pipeline, said 150-200 litres of oil products had leaked out and that this amount could not have polluted the water in the supply plant. The works were part of measures taken to supply gas to an oil refinery in Bosanski Brod across the Sava River in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to reduce the air pollution the refinery is causing in Slavonski Brod.
Plenković said that a thorough analysis would be carried out to determine the cause of the incident and to see if the pollution was connected to the incident which occurred during the pipeline cleaning. He stressed that the state had reacted promptly and that different services delivered 16 tank cars, 61 reservoirs and 600,000 litres of bottled water to Slavonski Brod and that water would continue to be delivered to the Slavonski Brod region as long as necessary. Plenković also said he was confident that public health measures had been taken in the meantime.
Residents of Slavonski Brod and nearby municipalities have been without drinking water since Saturday because the local water well has been polluted with hydrocarbons. On Monday morning, work began to connect Slavonski Brod to the water well at Sikirevci, which is expected to be completed within the next two weeks.
