Remember the battle to keep stunning Romanian river Bâsca Mare wild?
Well, the environmental approval for Suruc dam was annulled by court in 2022, which was a reason for celebration. But works continued and the corrupt Environmental Guard refused to stop the building works. And now the ministry for Environment is issuing a new environmental agreement, even though it is illegal to issue such an agreement for initiated building works, meaning that dam is about to go ahead and divert 20 km of this river and turn riverbed dry. Along with degrating the rivers Bâsca Rozilei and Buzău downstream.
The draft of the environmental approval was posted for public consultation of 10 days. This is where you can step in and tell the ministry that what they are doing is illegal, corrupt and simply wrong. Bellow you will fing sample text and email address to which you should send your message. It is not like the ministry would not have all the ecological and legal proof against this absurd project, the arguments were received again and again from Romanian biologists and NGOs. The minister only needs public pressure to obey the law, in the faint rule of law from Romania.
EMAIL TEXT:
Bâsca Mare is the most ecologically valuable river out of the very few rivers in Romanian Carpathians that were not destroyed by hydropower yet. Because it still has a significant flow, it has insignificant pollution due to the presence of only one village upstream and it has fascinating rocks in the riverbed. The stretch with no road on the banks add to its value, even from a geomorphological perspective.
It is unconceivable to have it destroyed based on fake studies which contradict a final court decision, decision no. 641/2022 of Cluj Court of Appeal, decision which acknowledges that the so called Surduc – Siriu hydropower development, actually the Nehoiașu II diversion hydropower plant, has a significant impact on Penteleu Natura 2000 site, situated downstream from the intake dam.
Nehoiașu II will also destroy, by hydropeaking, the Natura 2000 site Lunca Buzăului, and the impact on this site lacks from the assessment payed by Hidroelectrica, the mammoth company which absurdly continues to destroy rivers through outdated projects, instead of desilting reservoirs at plants which operate at an insignificant proportion of their capacity.
The illegal dam building site at Surduc is presented, as a negative example, on the first page after the cover in the first IUCN guidelines on ecological connectivity, translated in French, Spanish, Mongolian, Korean and Chinese. https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/49061
It is a shame for all the European Union that such an illegal project can be whitewashed by a ministry of an EU country.
The Nehoiașu II diversion hydropower plant, which destroyes Bâsca Mare River, Bâsca Rozilei River and Buzău River breaches the Carpathian Convention, which stipulates that the Parties shall ”pursue policies aiming at conserving natural watercourses”. http://www.carpathianconvention.org/tl_files/carpathiancon/Downloads/01%20The%20Convention/1.1.1.1_CarpathianConvention.pdf
At the public consultations, the locals which will have their quality of life devastated when the river will be diverted opposed the project, you are breaching the Aarhus convention by ignoring them. We appeal to your conscience and ask you to watch the Deutsche Well reportaje on this subject, before taking a final decision. Please stop this ecocide, please do not issue an environmental approval for Surduc – Siriu hydropower development!
Send the above text or your own message to email addresses: evaluare.impact@mmediu.ro; eia.hidrocentrale@mmediu.ro and comment on the last post of the minister here: https://www.facebook.com/DianaBuzoianu/
