CRNKOVIĆ: CHERNOBYL YESTERDAY, TRGOVSKA GORA TODAY

NOVI GRAD, APRIL 27 /SRNA/ – The head of the Green Team Association from Novi Grad Mario Crnković assesses that Croatia's plan to store nuclear waste at Trgovska Gora represents a disaster in the making, especially in a year marking four decades since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Crnković says that just as the disaster in Chernobyl was initially ignored 40 years ago, today there are attempts to ignore the fact that a policy of an EU member state is pushing radioactive and other hazardous waste to the border with a neighbouring country, at a site inadequate and unacceptable.

"Even if the site were suitable in terms of its characteristics, which it is not, it would still be abnormal to ignore a neighbouring country. However, we live in a world where the word ‘normal’ is not valued, and good neighbourly relations even less so," Crnković told SRNA.

He recalled that four decades have passed since the Chernobyl disaster and that some lessons have been learned, primarily regarding nuclear reactor design, but that part of the lessons related to responsibility remains only on paper, with the Trgovska Gora case being the best example.

"Occasionally, we hear phrases intended to obscure the tragedy that radioactive waste is being offered as a development opportunity to Dvor, a returnee community with a predominantly older population. On the other side is Novi Grad and the municipalities and towns of Krajina - from Bihać and Velika Kladuša along the valleys of the Una and Sana rivers - which have in no way benefited from nuclear energy, yet will inevitably suffer the consequences, to a greater or lesser extent," he emphasized.

Crnković asked why someone born or to be born in Krajina should suffer the consequences of nuclear energy used in Croatia or Slovenia.

"The problem is not electricity consumers, but bad ideas, bad people, and interest groups willing to endanger everything for profit," Crnković said.

He noted that managing radioactive and other hazardous waste is a lucrative business, while, as he puts it, the life of an ordinary person is not valued.

"How much we have learned from the Chernobyl disaster will be shown in the decades ahead, but in the Trgovska Gora case we are once again learning long-known lessons - that life is worth fighting for in every field," Crnković said.

Croatia plans to store radioactive waste from the Krško Nuclear Power Plant, as well as existing institutional waste, at the Trgovska Gora site in the municipality of Dvor, right on the border with BiH.