Tourism development strategy at its best.
The new building of the Makarska Waterworks municipal company, worth 7.5 million kuna, is not the only one which is not connected to the local sewage system. The hotel complex Romana, opened two years ago and worth 50 million euro, is also connected to a septic tank, reports Jutarnji List on August 24, 2018.
It is hard to believe that 105 apartments with more than 110 toilets are connected to an ordinary pit where grey and black water is collected. By the way, the hotel complex has some 17 pools and can welcome about 400 guests.
The information has been confirmed by the local waterworks director Šimun Borić, who said that Romana had fulfilled all the necessary conditions for connecting to the sewage system during construction, but ultimately, due to an increased number of rooms, it was also connected to a septic tank.
The reconstruction of the Romana’s sewage system will follow in the future when the construction of another hotel in the area starts. That was supposed to have already occurred, but the project has been delayed. The sewage system for the new hotel, which will also cost 50 million euro and have 267 rooms, will be paid by the Romana company as an investor and the DER Touristik Hotels (DTH), which will manage the hotel.
“It is true that Romana is connected to a septic pit, actually a biorotor which biologically purifies wastewater, but it is also connected to the sewage system, which means that all apartments are actually connected to a biorotor. During the construction of the hotel, a connection to the biorotor was not planned initially, however, that later became the only possible solution to the problem. Still, all waste is purified and turned into water used for watering flowers,” said Borić.
He added that similar problems haunt the local waterworks headquarters. “Our newly-constructed building has just four toilets which are connected to the biorotor, and the water can be used to water flower. The Super Konzum supermarket is also connected to a septic tank which is emptied by an authorized company,” said Borić.
He noted that the waterworks had planned to build a sewage system for the Volicija neighbourhood, but the Croatian Roads public company would not grant its approval until a new traffic roundabout is built in the area. Therefore, all houses in the neighbourhood north of the Adriatic highway have septic tanks, which are emptied about once a year. That includes some 900 homes and luxury villas in the Velika Brda area, which are connected to septic tanks or private biorotors. The waterworks is planning to construct a sewage system there, and the project will take two to three years and cost about 180 million kuna.
“It includes about ten kilometres of pipelines, which would initially have about 900 connections. We plan to finance it from EU funds. This is indeed a major project, considering that Makarska now has 35 kilometres of sewage pipes,” concluded Borić.
Translated from Jutarnji List (reported by Dijana Turić).
