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The Only Weapon is the APIA

The deputy chair of “Ekoglasnost” Petar Penchev talks about
the court cases and the key role of the Access to Public Information Act

Diana Bancheva

National Movement “Ekoglasnost”
www.ndekoglasnost1989.wordpress.com

The National movement “Ekoglasnost” is established in 1991. It is an environmental organization working in public benefit – a successor of the Independent Society of “Ekoglasnost” of 1988. During its first six years, it was a part of the opposition
Union of Democratic Forces and a number of its members entered the political life and the government. Since 1997, however, it has continued its work as a civil association completely rejecting state subsidies and with a decreased number of members due to refusal to participate in political parties and coalitions. Its campaigns and actions, including litigation, against the restart of the construction of the Nuclear Power Plant “Belene” in 2004.
In 2002 – 2003, “Ekoglasnost” opposed the planned combustion of the engines of the SS-23 missiles and due to the active application of the Access to Public Information Act achieved the transportation of the engines out of Bulgaria.
Together with a dozen of civil initiative committees in the region of Sofia, the Movement is leading a several-years battle against the combustion of the household waste of Sofia under the legally prescribed temperature. Through litigation, “Ekoglasnost” has stopped the reconstruction of a nuclear power reactor in one of the residential districts in the capital of Sofia. Due to its litigation in the Supreme Administrative Court, the Movement successfully opposed the project for construction of a National Repository of Radioactive Waste from the Nuclear Power Plant “Kozloduy,” arguing for the building of a geology type of disposal facilities.

You have said not once that you entered “Ekoglasnost” seeking a tribune for your civil position. We remember the protest in the Crystal Garden in Sofia in October 1989…

Shortly after that protest, the communism fell. Most importantly, however, was that the result was that the international community knew that there was civil society in Bulgaria. We have preserved the National Movement as a civil organization unlike the political club “Ekoglasnost.” Indeed, I entered “Ekoglasnost” seeking a place to express my citizen position, but also because there were plans for establishment of radioactive disposal facilities 16 km away from the city of Montana. Such plans made me feel responsible to publicly announce data from the Bulgarian Academy of Science and the Biological Institute reports regarding that repository – closed uranium mines “Smolyanovtsi.” It was my privilege to keep the flag of “Ekoglasnost” and I am still running with it against the winter. I am sure that the society knows that the first environmental organization in Bulgaria not only exists but is active in the protection of the environment and the life of the people. If it was not the Access to Public Information Act, we would have lost the litigation against the reconstruction of the nuclear power plant in the residential “Mladost” in the capital of Sofia.

Please, tell us more about the litigation.

The project was insane. It was planned to happen nearby a school, residential buildings, kindergarten. You know, the radiation has no limits. According to the nuclear power expert Georgi Kaschiev, there are still nuclear isotopes at the reactor chimney and nobody knows when the particles will take off and where will they go. Our main argument during the litigation was that no assessment of the impact on people’s health had been made in the project.  We filed a request under the APIA to the Ministry of Healthcare for the documents related to the coordination of the decision on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Ministry of Environment and Waters (MEW). The officials in the ministry were honest and well-intended and responded that they were not consulted for coordination of the decision. This was a victory important in another aspect as well. The court used the documents obtained under the APIA to develop its judgment reaching the essence of the problem. The MEW should not make assessments of such projects without thorough evaluation on the impact on the individual and human health.
The court reached the essence of the issue in another environmental case as well. This was litigation against the decision of the MEW approving of the EIA on the building of facilities for disposal of radioactive waste. We won and the MEW and the State Enterprise “Radioactive Waste” are appealing. Briefly, the project is for the construction of surface facilities, while we insist that a deep geological facilities are necessary providing safe protection for the next hundred years. And the Three-member panel used in their judgment those details particularly. The judges are learning. I am full of hope that Bulgaria is really heading to Europe.

What other cases is “Ekoglasnost” working on?

I gained the mandate to represent the National Movement in 2004 and received the support of all members of the Steering Committee to litigate. My first big case was related to the Sofia waste management. It was not my intention, but due to my activity, 13 civil groups have been established in the villages of Mramor, Petarch and the Sofia region, including the district of Suhodol. We started sending protesting letters to Brussels arguing that the selected technology was not environmentally safe. We were advocating for the plasma gasification technology because thus there is no pollution. Everything burns at a temperature of 1,300 – 1,500 degrees C and nothing is emitted in the atmosphere. We lost in the court, however. On the grounds of lacking legal interest, the complaint was dismissed. 

Another interesting case that we initiated was against the storage of the Sofia waste in the closed mines at the village of Novi Khan. We won the litigation and stopped the project.

The litigation against the unlicensed fuel used in the Nuclear Power Plant “Kozloduy” was very important. It was initiated after the disclosure of facts by the physicist Georgy Kotev about the use of fuel in the nuclear power plant that had not been assessed and approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. I can’t name a larger crime. Then, Kotev and I went to the Minister of Energy Traicho Traikov who met us with the sentence: “I know there is an energy industry mafia.” At that moment, I decided that I should speak out.

I obtained information related to the efficiency of the waste sorting facilities in Montana. It was zero. And here we are talking about taxpayers money. They are paying to a staff of 20 – 30 people to sort the garbage. And this garbage is horrible.

Has APIA been a decisive in any of the cases?

In all of them. The APIA has been the only weapon during all the years. In 2003, we raised the question about the burning of fuel from the SS23 missiles. Everything else was burnt in the military polygon at Zmeyovo, near the city of Stara Zagora. The population, however, protested against the burning of the fuel and the missiles were transported from place to place like a gypsy camp, finally arriving at the former military airport in the village of Gabrovnitsa 10 km away from the city of Montana. Then we lied on the railways and stopped two trains. At time, we were using such methods. We still did not know the power of the APIA. I received anonymously a document. I learnt later that it was secret. It contained data of the result from the missile combustion – tons of sulfur formations. All consecutive searches for information were made under the APIA. The Chairperson the Bulgarian Academy of Science told me later when the problem had been resolved that I had threatened him with the law. Indeed, I ended the request I filed to him with the statement that after the 14 days period, I will challenge the refusal in the Sofia City Court. The result of all this was that the missiles were exported to Slovakia where they were destroyed in special facilities.

September 2013

 

This case is part of the book "Civil Participation and Access to Information (15 Years of the APIA, 37 stories of NGOs)" published by AIP within the implementation of the project “Enhancing the Capacity of Nongovernmental Organizations to Seek Public Information” supported with a grant under the NGO Programme in Bulgaria under the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2009 – 2014 (www.ngogrants.bg).

The whole responsibility for the content shall be taken by the Access to Information Programme Foundaiton and it cannot be assumed under any circumstances that the document reflects the official stance of the  Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area and the Operator of the Programme for NGO support in Bulgaria.

 

 

 


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