The power station falls within the area “Rila-buffer”of the European environmental network NATURA2000, which was proposed by scientists and environmentalists more than 10 years ago and for which the European Commission also insists. It already sued Bulgaria to the Court of European Union for the persistent delay of the Bulgarian government with “Rila-buffer”.
The hydroelectric power station is envisaged on the rivers Cherni Iskar, Malyovishka and Gorna Preka, which are inhabitated by one of the rarest fish species such as the European bullhead – a species protected within the European network NATURA2000. Not correspondence of the coordinates given in the permit made highly probable affecting both the National park “Rila” and drinking sources of the villages in the region of Samokov and living districts of Sofia.
Dimiter Kumanov from the fishing club “Balkanka” expressed his satisfaction by the decision of the Ministry. He thanked both the current Minister of the environment and water Irina Kostova and the previous Ministry team, since according to him a great part of the work on consideration of this claim has been done during the mandate of Minister Ivelina Vassileva.
Kumanov pointed out that he hopes that now the Basin Directorate-Pleven has to proceed and expressed his hope that it will make the right decision and will refuse to issue a new permit that will be again unlawful. The expert added that unfortunately such infringements are found in the permits of not only future hydroelectric power stations, but also of already acting ones. According to him there was no case when his organisation makes a check and does not discover irregularities. The fishing clubs and the non-governmental organisations however do not have the capacity to check all permits and so it is important that the Ministry of Environment and Water start doing this activity without waiting necessarily to be referred to, stated also Kumanov.
Despite the cancelled permit under the Water Act, the power station continues to have an acting building permit. So it is highly probable to witness new attempts for its building up.
A contracting authority of the project is “Agroengineering - 90” Ltd., property of Vassil Zlatev, former long-standing mayor of Pravets. The same company has a lot of projects in Sofia Region and recently it made quite a stir with that he sued the municipal Water and Sewage Enterprise of Botevgrad for hundreds of thousands levs for missed benefits. We remind that last year the water level of the dam “Bebresh”, from which the hydroelectric power station of the same name of Zlatev draws water, decreased drastically and populated places went under water-supply restrictions and the power station was made to stop. Now the argument whether the water should have been used for public water supply or for the production of electricity will be considered by the court.
Victory for nature! MoEW cancelled the permit for hydroelectric power station near Govedartsi
