Clean-Up of Environmental Hotspots Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Assessment of Environmental Monitoring Capacities in Bor Mission Report Interagency Mission to Bor 13-17 May 2002 UNEP/Post-Conflict Assessment Unit Geneva, September 2002 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Executive Summary 3 2. Introduction 6 2.1 General description of Bor and its environmental problems 6 2.2 Environmental and health monitoring mission 13 3. Mission findings and conclusions 17 3.1 Air monitoring 17 3.1.1 Meteorological data 20 3.1.2 Air pollution monitoring 21 3.2 Groundwater and drinking water monitoring 29 3.3 Surface water monitoring 34 3.4 Wastewater monitoring 38 3.5 Soil monitoring 43 3.6 Waste material monitoring 46 4. Recommendations 48 5. References 55 ANNEXES 56 Annex 1: Sampling results and locations 56 Annex 2: FRY legislation on water pollution control & wastewater 79 treatment Annex 3: FRY legislation concerning air pollution 99 Annex 4: EU Policies for Pollution Control 108 Annex 5: Effects of Selected Pollutants 112 Annex 6: Mission Participants and Mission Programme 115 2 1. Executive Summary The Municipality of Bor today faces an enormous challenge regarding building a healthy and sustainable future for its inhabitants and at the same time addressing the environmental and socio-economic legacy of several decades of polluting industrial development. The industrial activities in the Bor area, heavily concentrating on mining activities, have caused serious environmental problems and raised concerns about the health effects for the population in the area. While looking for alternative and complementary ways to develop the economic structure of the region, Bor – one of the environmental “hotspots” of FRY – in addition to a strong commitment from the local community, will need strong support from the responsible national authorities. The UNEP Programme “Environmental Clean-up of Hotspots in FRY”, is currently implementing conflict related clean-up and risk reduction activities in “hotspots”, identified in the UNEP/BTF Feasibility Study (April 2000). At the request of Bor Municipality, UNEP Clean-up Programme is providing assistance to Bor in the field of environmental monitoring. The current environment and health monitoring capacities in Bor make it difficult for the responsible authorities to inform the citizens in time of potential risks and to prepare effective measures for environment and health protection in the Bor area. The UNEP Monitoring Mission to Bor (later ref. the Mission), 13-17.5.2002, was undertaken in cooperation with the Ministry for Protection of Natural Resources and Environment of the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Secretariat for Labour, Health and Social Care/Environmental Department. The focal point appointed by the Municipality of Bor provided strong support for the mission, and the Institute for Public Health (IPH) of Belgrade gave considerable input to the mission preparations and the required sampling campaign. By involving the competent authorities and public institutions, thereby ensuring a transparent working process, the UNEP Monitoring Mission also aimed to enhance institutional capacities as well as to ensure the continued involvement of the competent authorities in the recommended follow-up. The objective of the Mission was to assess the status of environmental monitoring in Bor, then identify and recommend priority assistance in support of environmental monitoring. Furthermore UNEP hoped the mission would encourage the relevant national and local environmental and health authorities to consider and act upon possible correlations between key environmental characteristics and local health concerns. The monitoring mission report presents several concrete recommendations for improving the current monitoring capacities in the Bor area in the fields of air, water and soil monitoring. With regards to air monitoring it is very important in the short-term to provide equipment to Bor allowing continuous measurement of sulphur dioxide, measurement of airborne particulate matter and measurement of metallic elements, especially arsenic. In the medium and longer-term a statistical review of bronchial problems, cancer and hospital 3 admissions data is recommended, provided suitable comparisons can be made with other regions of FRY. Also in the medium term, consideration should be given to the installation of emissions monitoring equipment – particularly for sulphur dioxide. In the longer term there is a clear need for the competent national authorities to effectively assist FRY industry and utilities in the application of environmental management and controls, and also monitor the application and enforcement of environmental legislation. With regards to drinking water and groundwater monitoring, it is important to implement regular monitoring of all relevant parameters according to FRY and international legislation. In particular, analyses of heavy metals and organic parameters in drinking and ground water should be ensured either through increased national cooperation between relevant institutions or through supply of equipment to one of the laboratories in the Bor area. Concerning on-going monitoring of surface waters, regular analyses of all relevant organic parameters should be ensured either through increased national cooperation between relevant institutions or through supply of equipment to one of the local laboratories. With regards to wastewater monitoring there is a lack of information on wastewater discharges from industry and domestic effluents in terms of volume and strength. In order to address the problem a stepwise approach should be implemented consisting of identifying, quantifying and characterizing wastewater discharges in Bor (also assessing the current manpower and equipment capacity and additional requirements to carry out basic regulatory analysis and reporting). At the moment there is only limited information about the quality of the soil and the damage caused by mining and agriculture in the Bor area. In order to get an overview of the situation, basic monitoring should be implemented stepwise including, in addition to the basic parameters (such as pH, moisture, total organic materials, mineral oil, sulfur hydrocarbons and inorganic and organic nitrogen and sulphate), heavy metals, PCB, PAHs and pesticides that have been used in the area. With regards to waste monitoring there appears to be no information on volume, category and disposal route of waste materials in the Bor area and no effective regulatory framework and reporting structure. For e.g. the landfill site at Bor does not carry out any environmental monitoring and there is a lack of environmental control. The situation is therefore similar in many ways to problems with wastewater monitoring Based on the recommendation of the Mission and following further discussions with Bor stakeholders, as well as relevant national authorities, UNEP, within its budget limits, is prepared to assist Bor by providing monitoring equipment as well as training and capacity building on design and implementation of monitoring programmes. It is important to note that for any improvements in the monitoring capacities, the technical component must be accompanied by strengthening of human capacities. In 4 addition, it is crucial that the local stakeholders and relevant national authorities are committed to cooperating in a transparent manner, allowing all existing information to be shared and optimally used by the decision makers. Taking into account the financial constraints, this would also facilitate cost-efficient share of responsibilities and tasks between the different competent institutions. Parallel to this process, it is evident that improvements in the existing legislative framework should be made and, in particular, capacities to monitor and enforce the legislation/regulations should be strengthened. The central objective of any monitoring activities should be to support emission reduction and improvement in people’s quality of life. In order to allow potential financing partners to assess the benefits and costs of potential projects efficiently, the baseline information provided by monitoring activities must be coherent and valid for international comparison. The investment and remediation needs to overcome the serious environmental problems in Bor are considerable. Mitigation of the current environmental problems in Bor will require the full commitment of both local and national authorities as well as assistance from the international community. Following the executive summary, Chapter 2 provides a general description of Bor and its environmental problems. It also presents the objectives and framework, including the role of UNEP, for the interagency environmental and health monitoring mission. The mission activities, main findings and conclusions are presented in Chapter 3 with recommendations for improving the environmental monitoring and information capacities in Bor elaborated in more detail in Chapter 4. Relevant complementary information (including sampling results and legislation concerning environmental monitoring) is compiled in Annexes 1-6. 5 2. Introduction 2.1 General description of Bor and its environmental problems The Municipality of Bor is located in a mountainous and forested area in the southeastern part of Serbia, close to the Bulgarian and Romanian borders, at approx. 160 km from Belgrade. It has a total population of 65 000 people of which 40 000 live in the city of Bor. Administratively it forms part of the Zajecar region,