Cadastre of Mining Waste in Serbia project as example of good practice

The project Cadastre of Mining Waste in the Republic of Serbia, as an example of good practice, was presented at the 6th International conference on environmental protection and sustainable development in the sectors of energy and mining organized by the Serbian Chamber of Industry and Commerce on March 28-30.

Bane Hristić, Director of the project’s office in Belgrade, presented the project that includes identification, inspection and research of mining waste sites in Serbia.

The goal of the project, Hristić said, is to improve the mining waste management, to develop a mining waste cadastre, and to implement the EU Mining Waste Directive (2006) – in other words, to harmonize Serbia’s legislation with the EU acquis in the field of environment.

Serbia will get a list of more than 280 sites that are, or probably are related to mining, quarries or mining waste, he said. The list includes locations of 272 mining waste sites related to active mines as well as historical mining sites.

Hristić recalled that eight teams of local experts visited 250 mining waste sites in Serbia from August to October last year and found that the access was banned at three locations, while it was partially allowed at one; there was no mining activity on 63 sites (mineral dumps, not mines); and there was no mining waste (or it was of a very small volume) at 79 locations.

New research phase starts in spring

The Cadastre of Mining Waste project will continue this spring with an investigation of mining waste locations and facilities that could seriously affect people’s health and the environment, as well as the mining sites that contain waste classified according to EU directives as hazardous or dangerous above certain limits.

The identification of the mining waste locations for further screening and ranking will be done on the basis of the following criteria: area, volume, pollution – potential sources, chemical hazards – potential mobilization, physical hazards – instability of slopes of mining waste facilities, distance from surface waters, from agricultural land, from protected areas, and from houses or settlements.

List of locations for further investigation is expected

Site investigation will begin once the agreement on locations for further sampling investigation and the investigation program is achieved. The submission of the report is expected approximately by the end of summer 2019.

The Cadastre of Mining Waste in the Republic of Serbia is a technical assistance project that is being implemented with the aim to help Serbia harmonize its legislation with the EU acquis in the field of environment. The three-year project, to be implemented from February 2017 until January 2021 is to result in the creation of a cadastre in the form of a web application and a book.

The total investment value of the project amounts to EUR 2.1 million, of which 90 percent is financed by the EU through IPA funds, and ten percent by the Republic of Serbia. The end-user is the Ministry of Mining and Energy of the Republic of Serbia and the contractor is German consortium PLEJADES GmbH – DMT GmbH&Co.KG.

Concept of sustainability in mining and energy

The conference took place with the goal to discuss a long-term program for development of the environmental protection in the thermal power sector, hydropower, district heating system, electricity distribution and transmission, oil industry, mining and industry.

The concept of sustainable development also contains an economic element that in energy and mining sectors depends upon the level of plant revitalization and the increase of productivity based on modern technology systems’ implementation, said Miodrag Ignjatović, senior adviser of the Association for Energy and Energy Mining of the Serbian Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Sustainable development represents a complex social, political, economic, environmental, technological and cultural project. Globally and locally, it should lead to progress and change, thus establishing a new and true balance between nature and society, individual and community, between spending, saving and restoring resources, and lifestyle and value system, it was concluded at the gathering.