None of the five wastewater treatment plants planned for the territory of Belgrade have been built. At the same time, there are large spills of untreated water into the Sava, Danube, city watercourses and melioration canals.
According to the New economy, these are some of the main problems identified in the operation of the Belgrade sewerage system (BSS), it can be seen from the Strategy for the arrangement and maintenance of second-order watercourses in the territory of Belgrade.
The main problems are no longer solvable
Among the main problems of the Belgrade sewerage system, the fact that the capital facilities (tunnels, collectors, pumping stations, retentions) provided for in the General Solution of the Belgrade Sewerage from 1977 have mostly not been implemented is highlighted. Due to planned and unplanned urbanization, it is no longer possible to carry them out.
Another problem is that a certain number of pumping stations of the sewage system are in bad condition, as well as the fact that the channeling of atmospheric waste water is incompletely realized.
Bloody river
Artist Andrej Josifovski performed the performance "Bloody River" on the Sava River, which, as he told the "Vremena" portal, should point out what can happen if we don't shake ourselves out of the frenzy we've been in for a long time.
Among other things, the project points to pollution caused by the direct discharge of sewage from all the collectors in this river basin.
"It was an experiment that was supposed to show what awaits us if the long-announced lithium mining actually takes place. I chose the place just below the 'forbidden city', considering that it is an architectural massacre that our city experienced", says Josifovski.
He adds that the performance "Bloody River" is multifaceted.
"Actually, next to the 'forbidden city' there is a large tunnel, a canal, which they call 'Mokroluška river'. When you look at the footage from the drone, it becomes clear to you what it really is. There is also a collector upstream towards the Fair, where you can also clearly see that the sewage is discharged there, directly from Banovo brdo.
The bloody river wails and screams, before it will flow through our Belgrade alive for the last time, then the faucets of our lives will also be closed. It is up to us not to let that happen and to fight back, and it seems to me that we are very close," he told Josifovski for the "Vremena" portal.
Waiting for a solution
The problem of the sewage network is one of Serbia's weak points, and its solution has been waiting for years.
According to the latest available data from the annual report of the Environmental Protection Agency, slightly more than a third of households in Serbia are without sewerage. The highest percentage connected to sewerage is in Belgrade, 89,1 percent, and the lowest in the region of Southern and Eastern Serbia, where every other household uses septic tanks.
The Belgrade Sewerage System (BSS) covers an area of about 15.000 hectares and includes the area of Old Belgrade, New Belgrade, Zemun and some settlements on the left bank of the Danube.
More than 1.200.000 inhabitants are connected to the sewage network, built in a dozen city municipalities. However, a large number of residents use their own septic tanks in the city as well.
According to research by the Vojvodina Research and Analytical Center (VOICE), waste water from more than half of the households in Vojvodina is discharged into septic tanks, which are then, in the majority of cases, pumped out by private individuals with their cisterns. Where they end up is mostly unknown.
A necessary plan for the future
In Serbia, only 20 percent of municipalities have municipal wastewater treatment plants, while other large urban centers besides the capital, Novi Sad and Niš, do not have them either.
O the importance of wastewater treatment plants The professor at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy in Belgrade, prof. Dr. Dragan Povrenović.
As he says, Serbia first of all needs personnel analysis and a plan for the future, as well as raising citizens' awareness of personal responsibility.
It is necessary to keep in mind, says prof. Dr. Povrenović, the lack of professional staff in Serbia.
"For this reason, in the past, the construction of plants was abandoned, with the excuse that there are no funds, and what is even worse, there is not even enough professional staff to maintain these plants in working order.
Since it is mainly about the biological purification of waste water, it is necessary to keep the entire system alive, so small mistakes can lead to unwanted effects and, in the end, the cessation of the system's operation", explained Povrenović.
As he said, in the early eighties there was a wave of construction of various facilities throughout our country, but as soon as they were put into operation and when it was necessary to maintain them in operation, we did not know how to do it, and that is why we have many "monuments" that testify about our attitude towards ourselves, because we paid for them, then let them go to waste.
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