The Ljubljana Mayor, Zoran Janković, believes he is more important than the state, its rules, and its authorities. The Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy has not yet issued an environmental permit for the installation of reinforced concrete duct channels in part of the C0 sewer line, but the Municipality of Ljubljana has already completed the installation. As Janković said, the municipality only has 128 metres of the disputed canal left to install, while the canal is 12 kilometres long in total.
The Municipality of Ljubljana has completed the construction of the C0 sewage canal on the 2.1-kilometre section with reinforced concrete duct channels, as well as on the section without the said concrete duct channels, Mayor Zoran Janković announced recently. He did this despite the fact that the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy has not even issued the environmental consent for the installation of the reinforced concrete duct channels yet. Only a 128-metre-long section near the Stožice hippodrome still has to be completed, reports the newspaper Dnevnik.
Janković only applied for a building permit for this section at the end of June. Once he receives the said permit, the works will be completed within a week, according to the Mayor. He added that it was only in the third opinion that the Environment Agency took the view that an environmental impact assessment should be carried out, but only for the section with the concrete duct channels. And although the municipality has already completed the installation of the said channels, it remains unclear whether the intervention is environmentally acceptable. The environmental impact assessment, the process for which was initiated at the competent ministry in September 2021, has not yet been completed.
The risk of drinking water poisoning remains high for 90 percent of Ljubljana residents!
The ministry is expected to finalise the assessment after obtaining a legal opinion from the Faculty of Law in Maribor, which should happen by the end of the month. Janković does not object to the legal opinion, but the final decision on the C0 canal will be taken by the Administrative Court. The commissioning of the legal review was also welcomed by former Environment and Spatial Planning Minister Miha Jazbinšek. He believes that the first building permits were not based on an adequate legal basis. And regarding the Administrative Court, the question arises whether the ruling can be anything but in the Mayor’s favour, especially due to his close ties with the judiciary, which we have already reported on. Namely, a day before being acquitted in another case, Janković shook hands with the President of the Supreme Court at a football match that they both attended. Let us also remind you of all the judicial reprieves he has received, as well as Janković’s own words that he will never be convicted in Slovenia. The fact remains that the C0 sewage canal poses a serious risk of groundwater contamination and, thus, a health risk to 90 percent of Ljubljana’s citizens.
Domen Mezeg
