

Construction of a hydropwer plant on the river Mala Bjelava near Foca in southeastern Bosnia. Photo: Coalition for the Protection of Rivers in Bosnia-Herzegovina/Robert Oroz

Authorities in Republika Srpska, RS, Bosnia’s mainly Serbian entity, have denied that investors are using a lack of oversight, owing to the situation with coronavirus pandemic, to illegally build small hydropower plants on some of the country’s unspoiled but increasingly endangered watercourses.

The Coalition for the Protection of Rivers in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Save the Blue Heart of Europe said lack week in a statement: “While Europe is in lockdown, investors are increasingly taking advantage of the unusual situation to build controversial hydropower projects in secret. This is particularly true of rivers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH. South of the capital Sarajevo, the construction of five dams has now begun or is being pushed, in some cases without permits.”



The RS Ministry of Energy said in response that it earlier granted concessions for the construction of small hydropower plants on three of five rivers mentioned in last week’s statements by a coalition of Bosnian and regional environmental organisations.

The ministry said the RS government gave the go-ahead for the construction of power plants on the rivers Bjelava, Vrhovinska rijeka and Zeljeznica. The Mlada Bjelava river, which is also mentioned in the statement of the environmental groups, is a tributary of the Bjelava river.

“Concession agreements regulate the dynamic for the construction of the plants, as well as the time framework the concession-holder must respect to meet the terms of the concession,” the ministry said in its email response to BIRN, adding the law on concessions mandates it to oversee the fulfillment of the concession agreement’s terms.

In the case of a national emergency, which was declared in Republika Srpska last month, the oversight and issue of building permits is the responsibility of the Ministry of Urban Planning, Construction and Ecology, the Republic’s Directorate for Inspections and local self-government units, it added, without giving details.

The ministry said it had no information about plant construction on the Praca river, just east of the capital Sarajevo, and suspected its capacity might be smaller than 250 kW, for which no concession was needed.

Separately, the municipality of Pale, near Sarajevo, has said it will rescind a concession given by the previous local administration for the construction of a smaller hydropower plant on the river Prača, which was also listed in the statement by the Coalition for the Protection of Rivers in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign.

The head of the municipality said that following a protest by residents that all political parties in the local council opposed the construction on the Praca river and would vote on Wednesday for a construction moratorium.

They had “unanimously decided to stand by the people, to support them in their request to ban the construction of the Kadilo hydropower plant on the Praca river”, Mayor Bosko Jugovic was quoted as saying on the municipal website.

The construction of small power plants has intensified across the Balkans in the last few years and environmental activists say hundreds more are planned to be built, often involving non-transparent procedures and investors with close ties to the authorities.