ZAGREB, April 2, 2018 – Works to connect the eastern town of Slavonski Brod to the Sikirevci water supply plant began on Monday, with Environmental Protection and Energy Minister Tomislav Ćorić announcing that the people of Slavonski Brod and the surrounding municipalities would get drinking water in 15 days.
“The final stage will be in three months, the full activation of the wells in the Sikirevci area. This means cleaning them, expanding them, buying pumps and connecting them to the system,” Ćorić told reporters in Sikirevci.
Due to the unplanned connection of Slavonski Brod, whose water supply plant is polluted with hydrocarbons, to the Sikirevci water supply plant, occasional shortages in water supply may occur during the day in the next three months in Vukovar-Srijem County, which is also supplied from Sikirevci, the minister said.
Asked what polluted the Slavonski Brod water supply plant, Ćorić said he stood by his ministry’s view that the pollution was not directly linked to a leaking of oil products which occurred on Wednesday when the Crodux energy company was examining an oil pipeline leading to the refinery in Bosanski Brod, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The inspection team concluded that 150 to 200 litres of oil products leaked into the environment and the team undertook all they could. Everything should be done to determine the circumstances of this pollution,” Ćorić said.
He said it would cost five million kuna to connect Slavonski Brod to the Sikirevci water supply plant and reiterated that the people of Slavonski Brod would get lower water bills as they were not getting drinking but technical water. The management of the Hrvatske Vode water utility will make a decision to that effect on Wednesday, he added.
The people of Slavonski Brod and the municipalities of Bebrina, Brodski Stupnik, Bukovlje, Oriovac and Sibinj have no drinking water as of Saturday. There are 13 tank trucks with drinking water in the area and the army, the police and the Red Cross are helping citizens. Tank trucks with drinking water are being placed outside kindergartens and schools as well.
