The State Environmental Inspectorate (SEI) of North Macedonia is conducting inspections and reports its findings on old environmental pollution to the Ministry of Environment. However, it has no other obligations related to environmental hot spots.
“The ministry should secure assets for these locations to be adequately fenced off and marked, as well as to provide assets for their remediation. The inspectors from SEI visited the landfills in Zgropolci and Lojane and a report about the situation was penned, and it was submitted to the ministry. It’s up to the ministry to secure the locations because they are dangerous to the environment, people and the stock that are moving across the surrounding areas,” said the State Environmental Inspectorate’s Director Sreten Stojkovski during yesterday’s press conference.
Director Stojkovski said that the inspectors conducted inspections at the former industrial complex Jugohrom near the village of Jegunovce, but they realized on the spot that the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning takes care for the operation of the treatment station which cleans the wastewater containing hexavalent chromium from Jugohrom’s industrial landfill.
He also said that discharge of wastewater from the industrial landfill in Jegunovce into river Vardar happens only in cases when there is heavy rain and the ministry is putting maximum effort to renew the Jugohrom station, therefore making sure the danger of hexavalent chromium pollution is avoided altogether.
Meta.mk has been writing about the environmental hot spots in the country for quite some time. At Jegunovce the danger comes from the hexavalent chromium from Jugohrom’s industrial landfill, while in Lojane and Tabanovce there is danger from the disposed arsenic at the Lojane mine’s tailing pond and at the railroad station in Tabanovce, that pose a longstanding problem for the locals. Near Zgropolci there is a big landfill of waste gypsum, which also awaits cleanup. The state has taken over the obligation regarding the landfills, following the privatization of the industrial complexes such as Jugohrom in Jegunovce and the Chemical Industry Veles.
Илјадници жители од Кумановско четири децении се трујат со арсен и други отровни материи [фото]
Канцерогениот шестовалентен хром од депонијата во Јегуновце го демне здравјето на граѓаните [фото]
