WATERCOURSES AND THEIR LIVING WORLD UNDER THREAT DUE TO GRAVEL EXTRACTION: Dredgers kill rivers

Things have got worse since the government imposed moratorium on gravel extraction and the so called strict control of riverbeds. Sharks in the construction business make millions in dredging the Moraca River. On the other hand, the treasury of Podgorica City Council benefited fewer then four Euros from the concession fees in 2016.   

The bank of the Moraca River in the village of Botun near the Podgorica Aluminum Plant (KAP) looks as though struck by the Apocalypse. The scenery resembles a science fiction doomsday movie. The river thereat has lost its unique appeal and all the rocks and caves that had dotted the bank have been turned into huge piles of trash and construction waste.

The Celebic Company as well as others line up the river bank amidst mounds of sand and gravel which block and dwarf the river. Gravel is spilled around for miles. You can see it on farm lands, on the pavements, etc. It was Sunday when we toured the area. Each hundred metres we saw heavy machinery and dredgers which drilled through the riverbed and juggernauts driving the loads away despite the government moratorium on sand and gravel extraction.

The gravel ban hasn’t improved the things. Montenegro’s riverbeds have become unrecognizable by havoc wreaked while their living world is on the brink of obliteration. The business is conducted under pretense of watercourse regulation which makes certain individuals and companies filthy rich while the whole community is expected to foot the bill for immeasurable environmental and economic destruction- as the Montenegrin Investigative Reporting Centre (CIN-CG) and the weekly Monitor find out.

The minister of agriculture Milutin Simovic admitted that "the rivers were destroyed and that strict monitoring would be enforced". Moreover he warned those who act in defiance of the government and said that they would have to face the consequences. However the business continues as usual. No more than three inspectors are assigned to control the major rivers and their tributaries while the paltry fines are no deterrent to lawless behaviour. Furthermore, the ongoing criminal activities and alarm bells from individuals and NGOs cause no concern to public prosecutors who wouldn’t even bother to take a look, let alone launch an investigation.

Directorate for Water told CIN-CG/Monitor that "the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development introduced the moratorium due to expired concession contracts and illicit extractions... and also because of needed watercourse regulation projects".

The National Sustainable Development Council that monitors the issue was "pleased with the progress" of the moratorium and the watercourse regulation drafts. However, the same apocalyptic Moraca landscape can also be seen in the river basins of Tara, Cijevna, Lim and other rivers whereof the National Council can be "pleased with the progress".

Watercourse regulation as excuse to carry on as before

Gravel extraction contracts for 25 locations (the rivers of Moraca, Lim, Tara, Ibar, Grncar and Gracanica) expired all by the end of 2016. The Ministry of Agriculture claimed that riverbeds and the living world therein had to be revitalised of which the fish habitats and the water quality improvement were the prime targets. Nonetheless, the Ministry failed to respond whether any of the concessionaires have restored the areas that they had exploited. The example of the Moraca River is notorious as the licensee left two big craters near the river bank which now serve for garbage disposal.

Aleksandar Perovic of the Ozon Environmental Movement (OEM) said to CIN-CG/Monitor that it would be hard to find a single concessionaire void of avarice and arrogance. "All they want is more profit".

The privileged circles push for merciless exploitation of natural resources whereby they make millions through the aforesaid operations. At the same time they destroy ecology of the riverbeds and pay miserable money to the state treasury and the city councils. Already back in 2014 the Parliament’s Committee on Economy, Finance and Budget unanimously agreed that the field of concessions (including watercourses) was unregulated and that the treasury could have collected more than €10 million out of it. The state revenue from concession licences amounted to dismal € 25,217.76 in 2016, when the extractions were still legal.

However, the licencees didn’t even bother to pay that meagre amount and hence many local governments didn’t even get the crumbs of the crumbs that they were entitled to (70% of the concession fees were to be allotted to the city councils and the rest to the state treasury). In reality, the Podgorica City Council had a revenue of €3.91 for gravel extraction back in 2016.

The residents of Botun that CIN-CG/Monitor reached out to would not speak on record. But they informally admitted that the moratorium did not bring any improvement. The gravel is still extracted, poison is all around, the fish stock is gone and the beaches along the river are destroyed.

Believe it or not, the ongoing environmental disaster has become even more complex. A part of the population ferociously protests while the other part is indignant because they are barred from taking their own turn in the dredging. In a recent gathering in Botun they even threatened to block the roads and become more radical if the government remained deaf to their demands to join the extra(destru)ction efforts. Upon the protest the Directorate for Water replied that the aforesaid area is under the water regulation project (with three contractors and the monitoring team).  The aim thereof is not to exploit but regulate the course of the Moraca River while all the extracted material is recorded and paid for accordingly. The excess material is paid by the contractors Cijevna Komerc – 2,75 €/m³, Beton Montenegro – 2,76 €/m³ and Bemax 2,78 €/m³

Mr Perovic (OEM) retorts that "the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture made a joke of the moratorium from the onset as they allow the extractions under pretense of the so called riverbed regulation which is granted to the privileged only. That breeds corruption and other illicit activities which should alert the public prosecutors’. He adds that the Gracanica River in Niksic is actually the worst example and its "riverbed is actually a flowing waste depot".

Profit multiplied by six

Milutin Micovic, president of the Lim Fishing Club in Berane says that the moratorium did work there for a couple of months in 2017 due to alarms in media and inspections on spot. Nevertheless "in 2018 the lucrative dredging has resumed without restraint under pretense of restoration and regulation".

Micovic explains that those in the business got two permits after years of merciless destruction of the river ecosystem. One permit allows for removal of the Lim gravel-bars and sandbars in seven locations along with construction of an embankment on a line of the river. The other permit allows the contractors to carry away the sifted gravel and pay €3.05/m3 compensation to the government.

Bigger "concessionaires" were granted permits for three locations in the Berane Municipality to conduct the so called watercourse regulation which includes embankment although there was no need for that- says Micovic. Thus they’ve managed to dredge away hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of sand and gravel.

The Directorate for Water told us that the Beton Group – Popovic Ltd, was issued permit to carry out "emergency works" in the Lim riverbed in Berane’s urban area in the length of 500m.

Damir Gutic, head of the Directorate for Water told CIN-CG/Monitor that despite the moratorium some permits were granted pursuant to the regulations for the purpose of watercourse regulation so to prevent sandbars, meandering, erosion of arable land and flooding. He further says that since the moratorium the Directorate issued approvals for emergency measures in 6 municipalities on the rivers of Grncar, Lim, Tara and Moraca.

"The emergency measures" are carried out by 13 companies (see the table) as the water directorate states. It appears that all is about (tonnes of) money. The cubic metre of extracted gravel is paid €3.05 while the market price is as six times as much. In the last year, when the moratorium was introduced, the "contractors" officially dug up 26,847 m3. The official data does not corroborate with the allegations of the locals protesters in Zeta (the Moraca basin) who publicly stated that "just one of those concessionaires extracted 70,000 m3 claiming it was approved by the capital city’s council". The locals that we spoke to say that they had referred to the Celebic Company which was entrusted with the job of eliminating the sandbar and accumulated material in the location of Misurica (the length thereof is 300 metres).

Upon complaints of the Zeta locals that the gravel extraction continues unhindered, the authorities set up an overseeing committee. Nonetheless the city authorities wouldn’t respond to our inquires about the findings of the aforesaid committee. The Celebic Company also remained silent to our question whether the sandbar removal license has been renewed this year. The Bemaks and the Cijevna Komerc wouldn’t answer the allegations about ongoing gravel extractions.

Directorate for Water told us that this year 23 watercourse regulation contracts had been signed but we didn’t got the list of companies that were to carry out the projects. The Directorate still has no complete data on the extracted amounts in 2018 and no evaluations of paid concession fees- so we are told by director Gutic.

Mr Micovic explains to us what the regulation means on the ground. "Directorate for Water approved the removal of a part of the bank around the bridge in the centre of Berane where Fly Fishing European Championship will take place in 2019. There was no concern about dredging around the bridge even though the law forbids every undertaking in the length of 100 metres around it".

Moreover, the licences issued to two companies to carry the work on a part of the Lim River account for another big problem. The Ljesnica River, which is the Lim tributary, is natural fish spawning ground and has been been protected under strict law over the last 20 years. "Over there you have true ecocide as the Lim has been moved to the left towards the village of Stitari in the length of a thousand metres and thereby separated from the Ljesnica which is walled off so that heavy machinery can dredge the hundreds of thousands of cubic metres unhindered“ points out Micovic.

Authorities "concerned" again

After the introduction of the moratorium, the government formed the Coordinating Team (CT) and drafted the action plan to no avail. The CT is made of representatives from the government and the local authorities who now jointly warn (again) that every illicit extraction will be duly punished. Inspectors recently monitored the Moraca riverbed and concluded that "there are reasons for concern due to a number of illicit extractions. Furthermore, erosion of soil and arable land near the river has spun out of control".

Jovana Janjusevic is executive of the Centre for Protection and Observation of Birds which is a local NGO. In her interview with CIN-CG/Monitor she claims that the best thing would be to give up on those watercourse regulation projects as "rivers are natural ecosystems and the best way to keep them pristine is to spare them from human interventions as it was the case for thousands of years before". She reminds that all over the EU there are ongoing projects of restoring riverbeds to where they were in the first place.

Micovic emphasizes that there’s hardly any control of the rivers and says that "while the Directorate for Water is in charge to issue licences, it's up to the inspectors to monitor the work. However there is only one inspector in the northern half of the country".

Experts who work for the government told CIN-CG/Monitor, on condition of staying anonymous, that the government could easily solve the problem if it wanted to- hire more inspectors who will be assisted by police and set up road blocks on exit ways, control the lorries and the amounts of extracted sand and gravel that are driven away. Nonetheless, those who have sucked millions of Euros out of the rivers are close to the government and such synergy only makes things worse. The Ministry of Interior is also involved as it fails to control the gravel transports despite the fact that many lorries operate without proper plates and permits.

When it comes to the moratorium efficiency the real icing of the cake came from the government which permitted the Chinese CRBC to extract gravel in close proximity of the Tara River source. This UNESCO protected river is also on the path to destruction under pretense of watercourse regulation.

Minuscule fines

Inspectorate General issued 13 fines for various irregularities since the moratorium introduction (against 11 individuals and two legal entities). The total sum of fines is €4,800.

Directorate for Water can’t boast of the moratorium enforcement either. It provided toll free telephone line to report illicit extraction as well as email address. So far 31 reports came through which were forwarded to the inspectors. On the other hand, Directorate for Water announces amendments to the law which regulates the matter and more severe penalties.

Predrag NIKOLIĆ