Štefan Szabó - SOSNA, Center for sustainable alternatives
BACKGROUND
The "upper Abov" region, located between the city of Košice and the Hungarian border, is a multinational region, inhabited by Slovak, Hungarian and Roma nationalities. People in the upper Abov communities are suffering from centralized and inefficient economic activities which originate in Košice. Wind and water carry pollution from the East Slovak Steel Mills (VSŽ), Central Heating plant and Incineration Plant and waste water from treatment plants to this region. The upper Abov Region now belongs to one of the most polluted areas in Slovakia. All these industrial plants mentioned above are working mostly for Košice, but are located in upper Abov, which is a traditional, rural and agricultural area. The people from upper Abov suffer environmental health problems, including birth defects in children.
Protests of local mayors and their constituents in this region are not respected by the polluters. Most of the protests, demands and activities are isolated, as there is not a strong, unified and directed forum for focusing the protests and ideas of local communities. Local people have no information and skills allowing them to be involved in public policy.
THE GOAL
As the leader of the project, SOSNA is connecting and empowering the upper Abov watershed community members to solve related local environmental and social problems. Together, concrete citizenship activities can continue to build a civil society.
SOSNA is strengthening the means for local people and local governments to make decisions that positively influence their living conditions, as they see best for their situation.
"Communities in Action" presents a special opportunity to cooperate
and to combine experience for three main results:
1) Make a lasting impact on the long-term health of individual watershed
communities,
2) Affect the attitudes of local citizens towards voluntary and citizenship
activism,
3) Create a new model for "environmental democracy" in Slovakia, by
training people to take charge of their living situation, and spread the
success to others.
"Communities in Action" is a new model of community activism for
Slovakia. Programs similar to "Communities in Action" already exist
successfully in the Czech Republic, in Western Europe and in
the United States.
DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES
COUNSELLING SERVICE - "KNOW YOUR RIGHTS" PROJECT
In the frame of the "Know your Rights" project, which is an integral
part of the "Community in Action", SOSNA is providing telephone and
personal counseling for representatives from the upper Abov region, mainly on
two fields:
- Legislation and justice,
- Environment and ecology.
SOSNA has created a group of expert advisors on various environmental subjects
and there is a part time employed lawyer, specialized on environmental and
civic law.
Following our experience, local government is interested especially in problems
of waste management, waste water treatment, quality of drinking water and in
dealing with external sources of pollution.
TRAININGS
As the main "support" activities, realized in the frame of "Know
your Rights" project are the round tables and trainings.
Trainings organized by SOSNA are focused on improving of some important skills
of local mayors and other community leaders. Up to now, the following trainings
have been realized:
- Environmental and Civic Law,
- Impact of environmental pollution on human health,
- Negotiation skills and conflict management,
- Sustainable local development,
- Separated waste collection, recycling and its economical aspects.
Next planned training will be "The Councilor as Guardian of the
Environment", provided by ETP-S and dealing with principles of Local
Agenda 21 and implementation of principles of sustainable development on
communal level.
ROUND TABLES
Concerning the round tables, the aim is to put together subjects with different
attitudes and interests (polluters, local government, state government,
representatives of specialized environmental organizations, non-governmental
organizations and media). Our aim is to open some discussions on most serious
environmental topics in the upper Abov region and facilitate at searching for
consensual solutions of this problems.
Up to now, three round tables have been organized:
1. Waste and its problems. Participants from Incineration plant, and other
subjects, mentioned above, discussed the problems of waste management and the
impact of waste incineration on the region. As the output of this round table,
the common resolution has been prepared, which should significantly improve the
situation. This resolution is based on more sustainable waste management and is
supported also by the attitude of Hungarian officials from Miskolc city, which
stated, that the Incineration plant has a negative impact on the Hungarian
environment. Hungary has adopted environmental legislation of EU, where 0.1
nanogram of dioxines per cubic meter is the limit. The above mentioned
incineration plant, with old and insufficient technology is producing almost
100 higher concentrations of dioxines!
2. Municipal waste water treatment plant and its problems. The main partner at
this round table was the East Slovakian waterworks, which are servicing the Municipal
waste water treatment plant. Among the other participants, delegation from
Hungarian Environmental Protection Agency has been present, which
demonstrated the impact of the water treatment plant, which is an old and
insufficient one, on the water quality and ecosystems of the Hornad river.
3. Access to environmental information and the Aarhus Convention. This round
table was focused on the recent applied legislation on the access to
environmental information, its insufficiency and possible applications. Another
topic was the Aarhus Convention, possible ways of its ratification by the
Slovak Republic and differences between our valid legislation and the Aarhus
Convention.
CLEAN WELLS CAMPAIGN
As mentioned above, the quality of drinking water is one of the most important
topics, since some villages in the upper Abov have no public water supply
system, so they have to use local sources.
To get more information about the quality of drinking water, SOSNA sampled 50
wells in the whole region in the summer of last year. Results of analysis have
shown, that the poor quality of water in the wells is caused partly by external
sources (heavy metal with origin from Steel Mills, Waste Water Treatment Plant,
Central Heating Plant) as well as local sources (nitrates, ammonia and
microbiological pollution, with origin in local septic tanks and farms).
To improve the quality of ground water in the region, the Clean Wells Campaign
has been started. This campaign is focused partly on the local villagers and
partly on the local farms and agricultural cooperatives. The campaign includes
distribution of leaflets to each home, with basic information on the impact of
households and farming on the quality of water in wells as well as some simple
activities, which should eliminate this impact. I addition to that,
trainings on some eco technologies and participation at public meetings in
region with discussions on this topic also took place.
COLORFUL WORLD
This educational project is prepared for the children of the upper Abov
region's schools. Children, as an integral part of the community, have a large
influence on their parents. The main goal of this program is not only to
educate children in this region, but also support them "to tell the truth
to power". This program was designed to let them know, that they can
improve a lot of things, a lot of problems, if they know more.
This project includes:
- educational programs in schools, focused on the topics of waste, water,
energy, greening,
- concrete actions, to implement knowledge from these four topics into school
life: greening of the village and biocorridor of the watershed, improving the
separated waste collection in the schools, saving water in school, repairing of
toilets and water taps etc.,
- education of teachers in eco club "RATOLESŤ",
- expeditions and trips visiting the places of natural beauty and of natural
values in the region,
- exploring the traditions and history of the region,
- children' s hearing: "Tell the truth to power" with representatives
of the local governments, polluters, water management company, environmental
offices, etc. to ask them "hot questions", to show interest in being
part of the solution.
TAKE CARE OF YOUR RIVER
The water monitoring project consists of monitoring surface water in the whole
Hornad River watershed, both on Slovak as well as on Hungarian part. Due to the
presence of heavy industrial activities, the water quality and natural
environment of this area has been significantly impacted. Specific industrial
activities of iron-ore production, mining and metallurgical industry, and other
engineering industries have significantly burdened the surrounding living
environment in this area. Similar environmental effects exist in the whole
watershed and throughout the natural ecosystem of the Hornad and Slan River
influence.
The goals of this project include:
- Educating the youth of the Slovak Republic and Hungary about the natural
environment,
- Acquiring basic knowledge and skills in water monitoring activities,
- Understanding how human activity can influence the environment and impact
drinking water sources,
- Improve water quality by cooperating with local environmental offices,
- Strengthening international cooperation in Central Europe and increase the
information exchange between NGOs participating with this project,
- Improving relationships between participating NGOs, local environmental
offices, and the public to facilitate discussion about problems and solutions
of environmental concerns.
This project includes field monitoring of chemical characteristics of surface
waters realized by groups created at primary and secondary school, eco-centers,
and free-time centers in Hornad Watershed both in Slovak and Hungarian side.
SOSNA leads this project in coordination with NGO Holocen,
an environmental organization in Miskolc, Hungary. This program has
already 34 monitoring groups measuring water quality and collecting evidence of
pollution. The water chemical characteristics that are monitored are pH,
nitrite and nitrate concentrations, dissolved oxygen concentrations, phosphate
concentrations, and other selected parameters, using portable laboratory sets.
Monitoring activities are completed with seminars for teachers and leaders of
monitoring groups and has been supported by a number of expeditions and field
trips. Results from this monitoring are processed by experts from the Technical
University in Košice, using GIS software.
EXHIBITIONS
An important part of this program is dissemination of information. Therefore,
two years ago we prepared the exhibition "Hornad - our river", which
had a big success.
This exhibition had the following goals:
- to inform people about the results of the Water monitoring program,
- to inform people about the past, present and future of the river watershed.
It is important to let people to know that they are living in an area with
a lot of history, where places of natural beauty and protected areas are
present. To inform people in Košice city and in the upper Abov region, we are
preparing now the new exhibition "Touching the landscape", which will
be installed in the Museum during the July and
August. Part of the exhibition will be panels with history of the
region, natural heritage, environmental problems, activities which NGOs are
doing in the upper Abov, etc.
CONCLUSION
One of the main problems, which we have to face is strong conservatism,
mistrust and the passive attitude of the public in the region. This is a common
problem in all of Slovakia. In general, it is possible to say, that good cooperation
with local representatives, children and common people have to be based on
personal contacts which enables understanding of real local problems, mentality
and other essential factors. After two years of intensive cooperation with
upper Abov, SOSNA can confirm it.