ince October 2016, Milieukontakt in cooperation with the Ecological Club and the community of Kruja have started monitoring full process of an environmental permit for the companies exploiting river and quarry careers. In addition to increasing the capacity of local NGOs and community representatives on monitoring environmental impact assessment (EIA), Milieukontakt Albania is introducing tools to involve public in monitoring such projects during the work.
These companies are the main source of air pollution in the city. In July of this year, Milieukontakt Albania together with Ecological Club of Kruja sent a request to NEA, REA Durrës and Kruja Municipality to obtain more information on the businesses operating in Kruja and Krasta Mountains mainly of the quarry careers, lime, cement plants and raw materials processing. From NEA, as response to our request dated 10/07/2017, information states that about 22 quarries are operating in the mentioned area. But local sources, environmental specialists, experts and the municipality staff itself, reveals that it is a bigger number of businesses operating.
During field visits monitoring, was seen a high intensity of work by two companies near the city of Kruja, generating pollution and acoustic noise exceeding permitted norms.Many trucks loading and unloading raw materials emitted dense dust clouds that ends up to the lungs of Kruja citizens. The consequences into the health are worsen by the fact that the green lungs of the city time to time shrink by DCMs, removing entire areas from forests to private activities.
Pictures speak themselves on the standards followed by companies during working hours, in the middle of the day.
The activities monitoring the process of drafting and consulting the profound EIA aims to highlight weaknesses, raise public awareness on projects that affect quality of life, foster community involvement in decision-making and environmental protection .
This activity is organized in the frame of the project: “CSOs practice EIA at all stages”, financially supported by the project “Civil Society Acts for Environmentally Sound Socio-Economic Development” (CO-SEED) funded by European Union and implemented by Institute for Nature Conservation in Albania.
