Bosnians Protest Mooted Croatian Nuclear Waste Site
Novi Grad, where the September 27 protests took place (Wikimedia Commons)
Hundreds of Bosnians rallied in Novi Grad in northwest Bosnia on September 27 to protest Croatia’s plans to build a radioactive waste disposal site near its border with Bosnia.
The protesters urged Croatia to reconsider plans to build the storage site for nuclear waste from the 1980s Krsko nuclear power plant at a former army barracks in Trgovska Gora, located only 500 meters north of the Bosnian border. They also warned that the facility would severely endanger the Una River, a Bosnian nature park known for its natural beauty, as well as the lives of around 250,000 citizens who live near the area.
The Krsko power plant was originally built in 1983 as a joint venture between Slovenia and Croatia to provide electricity for the two countries. At the time, both republics were part of Yugoslavia alongside Bosnia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. After Croatia joined the European Union in 2013, it was required to remove half of the low- and mid-level nuclear waste from the Krsko plant.
Ever since the media reported in 2015 that the Croatian government was looking at four potential locations, including Trgovska Gora, for nuclear waste storage, critics from both Bosnia and Croatia have been vocal in expressing their apprehension.
According to Maida Sabeta, an environmentalist working with Climate Save Bosnia, the Croation government needs to take an active role in assessing whether the location is truly safe for its project.
“No environmental impact assessment has been carried out in a cross-border context… Experts from Bosnia, but also from Croatia, have concluded that this site … poses a great danger to Bosnian citizens,” Sabeta explained.
Furthermore, Croatian National Assembly member Darinko Dumbović raised a different set of concerns.
“Who is going to buy organic products, honey, vegetables, fruits, lavender, all grown next to radioactive waste? It would be disastrous and catastrophic.” Dumbović argued that the Bosnian and Croatian governments failed to recognize that the plan, if carried out, would severely damage the area’s agricultural wealth, as well as its efforts to develop tourism near the Una River.
On the day of the protests in Trgovska Gora, a petition against the project signed by 16,000 people and 30 Bosnian civil society organizations was delivered to the Croatian embassy. Mario Crnkovic, from the Green Team Association, told the media, “We see the people from Lukavac and Tuzla who came to support us and say no to radioactive waste on Trgovska Gora. There are 26 environmental organizations with us. Some of them will also say ‘STOP!’”
The Croatian Ministry of Environment and Energy announced that the final decision on the location should be made in October between Croatian and Bosnian officials.