Once again, the residents of four local communities in the immediate vicinity of the planned hydroelectric power plant, as well as many activists, repeated a resounding “NO” to the construction of a hydroelectric power plant on the Bosna River at the Janjići site. The reasons, they point out, are visible to everyone.
“It is enough to look at some other plants, it is enough to look at their accumulation lakes and see everything that is on these dams, what accumulates, the second biggest reason is that the river Bosna is a fourth category river,” said Hasan Hrnjić, president of Local community Gorica, Zenica.
Although they signed the petitions, the authorities did not mind. The Coalition of the River Guardians, which includes many organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and beyond, has heard them.
“Following the construction of hydropower plants in the world, we have already seen how much dams would actually make the lives of the inhabitants worse. The water is retained, it spreads a bad smell and becomes polluted. Simply, the quality of life becomes worse. If this hydroelectric power plant is built, life in the Bosna River would be destroyed,” said Ulrich Eichelmann, executive director of Riverwatch.
“Hydropower plants cause damage to local communities and benefit only individuals. This is the biggest problem because the citizens are not involved on time because projects like this one just appear out of nowhere“, believes Jelena Ivanić, a representative of the Banja Luka Center for the Environment.
In the fight to save the environment, not all possibilities have been exhausted, especially the legal ones. The new Law on Environmental Protection with the accompanying regulation does not provide for the issuance of environmental permits for large hydropower plants. Prior to the entry into force of this Regulation, the investor shall apply for the renewal of an existing environmental permit. However, the capacity of the hydroelectric power plant was increased from the proposed 13.5 megawatts in the financial study to 16 megawatts in the environmental permit. And that’s where environmentalists see their chance.
“According to Article 68 of the new Law on Environmental Protection, a preliminary environmental impact assessment is required if there are significant changes in electricity generation capacity or some environmental changes, regardless of the fact that the regulation was passed later, when the investor applied for renewal.” said Emina Veljović, Executive Director of the Resource Aarhus Center Association in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
More than 100 hydroelectric power plants are currently under construction in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and some 400 are planned. Construction of 25 hydroelectric power plants is planned on the Bosna River alone.
Environmentalists emphasize the fact that only one wind farm has an average capacity of 50 megawatts, and right here the planned hydropower plant is only 16, or three times less, and this landscape will be irreversibly changed.
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