Progress report for
WATER OVER GOLD - PROTECTION OF ŽITNÝ OSTROV
Achievement at a glance
Environmental Screening of Underground Water in Rovinka, launched in October 2023, is a unique project in the conditions of Slovak municipalities, which was developed for the municipality of Rovinka by a private company and its experts in the field of remediation of environmental burdens that carried out a geological survey of the toxic waste dump of former Chemical Plants of Georgi Dimitrov (CHZJD in Vrakuna) in 2015 . Rovinka project responds to the current requirements of the new European and national legislation. Slovak public health authorities register the use of water from individual wells with unverified quality even where the groundwater in the wells may be contaminated due to known environmental burdens.Rovinka municipality is located in the upper part of the Protected Water Management Area of Žitný ostrov, there are indications that the quality of underground water may be threatened in connection with the toxic landfill of CHZJD in Vrakuna (part of the city of Bratislava) and other potential hidden environmental burdens.
As a network of observation objects were chosen inhabitants´ drilled domestic wells (depth from 8 through 16 meters) within 12 various areas in the cadastre of Rovinka. The blue arrows on the picture bellow show the general flow of groundwater from Bratislava towards the Rye Island. The Public Health Authority of the Slovak Republic (ÚVZ SR) welcomed the initiative of Rovinka, which can contribute to increasing the public's awareness of drinking water and the possibilities of drinking underground water from individual wells. It can also indirectly help to speed up the process of removal of the toxic landfill in Vrakuňa (part of nearby city of Bratislava). Therefore the ÚVZ SR suggested cooperation in the form of consultation or consulting activities and in accordance with the current capacities of its laboratories.
Challenges faced in implementation
In October 2023, Rovinka municipality made public the call for domestic well owners from different parts of the village to apply and register themselves for water analysis within the project. Maximum number of well water samples that could be analyzed in the first round of the screening (due to limited financial resources from the municipality budget) was 12 . The municipality also opened its bank account for potential donors and fundraising. So far, the village has not managed to get any subsidy for well water analyses to continue the screening at least during period of three years.Next Steps
Veronika BastaBeneficiaries
First the 12 domestic well owners, then their neighbors, the whole municipality, the municipality owners in direction of the flow of underground water, and last but not least the state organizations and institutions who can benefit from water analysis of the Rye Island area in the depth from 8 to 16 meters.
Slovakia has the largest natural groundwater reservoir in Central Europe - Žitný ostrov or 'Rye Island'. Its water originally comes from The Danube river. The land use of the area is devoted mainly to agricultural purposes. Podunajska Lowland area is supposed to suffer from droughts according to long-term predictions. During the summer of 2022, parts of Europe experienced drought conditions exacerbated by heat waves.
The municipality of Rovinka is one of the first municipalities in the direction of groundwater flow from the capital Bratislava and its numerous registered environmental burdens. This is also the reason why municipality of Rovinka decided to conduct its own environmental screening of groundwater, which can help to detect the pollution of the underground water and to protect public health.
The findings of the Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic of their deep control of underground water monitoring are listed in the final report named „Inadequate control of the quality of underground sources of drinking water threatens the health of the inhabitants“. The quality of underground sources of drinking water is insufficiently controlled. State authorities under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Environment, responsible for monitoring the quality of water resources, do not have sufficient and accurate information. The early warning system does not work, Slovakia lacks a central register of point and surface sources of groundwater pollution, which is a key tool in an effective water protection system. Sources of drinking water are threatened by increasing pollution by various substances penetrating into underground reservoirs. Therefore, the question of healthy and sustainable development is how to protect this precious and irreplaceable wealth, because we can lose it through our own carelessness.
In accordance with the requirements of Act no. 305/2018 Coll., the Slovak Public Health Authority (ÚVZ SR) is obliged to reassess the seriousness of contamination (published in on July 15th each year) in the raw water of protected water management areas for individual drinking water supply and to inform the affected municipalities and the public about significant findings. The ÚVZ SR prepared information and the list of municipalities (including Rovinka) with exceeded limit values and described possible health risks when drinking water with exceeded limit values of drinking water quality indicators .
Those are some of the reasons why Rovinka municipality initiated its own local municipality project named „Environmental Screeing of Underground Waters in Rovinka“. The Commission for Environmental Protection (municipality of Rovinka) invited inhabitants and various interlocutors to 2nd public debate dedicated to and named WATER OVER GOLD on May 18, 2023 . The partners for co-operation came up from this public event organized on the occasion of World Water Day 2023.
Actions
Timeline of main activities of the project:March 18, 2023 – public discussion WATER OVER GOLD held in Rovinka
June 2023 – Project „Environmental Screening of Underground Water in Rovinka“ was drafted
October 20, 2023 – Rovinka municipality made public the call for domestic well owners to register themselves for water analysis within the 1st sampling
November 6, 2023 – first water sampling was carried out in Rovinka
December 12, 2023 – meeting at the premises of Public Health Authority to discuss results of the first water sampling in Rovinka
May 17, 2024 – short video clip shooting in Rovinka
June 3, 2024 – second water sampling in Rovinka
Related events and context:
March 8, 2023 – Declaration on „Vrakuňa Landfill“ drafted and signed in Bratislava in the margins of the State visit to Slovakia of His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands
March 24, 2023 – UN Water Comitment (#SDGAction51300) WATER OVER GOLD – PROTECTION OF ŽITNÝ OSTROV was published
March 2023 – UN Water Comitment Commitment (#SDGAction51502) Protecting the largest drinking water reservoir in Central Europe (Žitný ostrov / Rye Island Slovakia) from the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic was published
April 22, 2023 – Rovinka municipality organized cleaning of illegal dump in the neighboring cadastre on Rye Island
April 27, 2023 – public protest in front of the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic demanding quick comprehensive information on the state of groundwater and also a proposal for a solution to this bad state and demanding immediate proceeding with solution to the removal of the toxic Vrakuňa landfill (toxic waste from CHZJD)
September 28, 2023 - Dutch Risk Reduction Team visit to Bratislava
November 29, 2023 - intention of the MOL concern (Slovnaft refinery) to build a hazardous waste incinerator at the beginning of Žitný ostrov published
January 31, 2024 - published the petition against the intention of Slovnaft refinery expand its negative impact on the air and water by another large source of potential pollution