{"id":5957,"date":"2020-03-05T14:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T12:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/?p=5957"},"modified":"2020-03-05T17:14:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T15:14:04","slug":"people-losing-water-due-to-coal-mining-in-poland-brought-petition-to-european-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/clanek\/5957\/people-losing-water-due-to-coal-mining-in-poland-brought-petition-to-european-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"People losing water due to coal mining in Poland brought petition to European Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Representatives of the Liberec regional government, Greenpeace Czech Republic, Frank Bold and local citizens affected by the serious negative impacts of Polish coal mine Tur\u00f3w came to the European Parliament today to hand over their petition against the expansion of the mine. The petition was signed by more than 13 000 European citizens in three months. The mine is located in Poland, on the border with Czech Republic and Germany, and Polish authorities are doing everything possible to extend the size and re-licence its operation until 2044.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Voices of citizens, local authorities, NGOs and governments of affected countries are reflected mostly formally in the decision-making process, while several EU directives are being violated. EU citizens are turning to the EU Parliament and the Commission asking them to stop this flagrant violation of EU law. The matter is urgent to them, since the current licence will expire in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Mining and coal burning in Tur\u00f3w is already causing water scarcity, air and noise pollution and fuels the climate crisis and, if the mine is extended, it is expected to put 30 000 people in the Czech region of Liberec out of water. Many Czech people living near the mine already depend on water-tank supplies, need to wash laundry and take showers at family relatives or neighbours. The powerpant and the mine Tur\u00f3w are also estimated to cause 120 premature deaths a\u00a0 year due to air pollution.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Local citizen Milan Starec is speaking on the press conference in Brusseles. Next to him are vicechair of European Parliament’s Petitions Committee Tatjana \u017ddanoka, MEP Martin Hojs\u00edk and Greenpeace Czech Republic coal campaigner Nikol Krej\u010dov\u00e1. (c) Greenpeace – Johanna de Tessieres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Milan Starec from local village Uheln\u00e1 says:<\/strong> 
\u201cThe mining activity in Tur\u00f3w has brought very hard consequences for us, citizens of the closest villages on the Czech side of the border. Our wells have either completely dried out or have become very unreliable, so we have no choice but to look for desperate solutions. Our neighbor from V\u00e1clavice has to do laundry at his parents\u2019  house 20 kilometers from his home, another family with zero water supply pumps it into their well from the local creek. One local farmer had to kill 6 cows last year, as he did not have enough water for all the herd. Many people share similar experiences. And at the same time mining company PGE is draining 40 litres each second from us that is being totally wasted away. The amount of water they drain into the river is equal to the yearly consumption of 350.000 people, the whole Liberec region. If the mine comes closer and becomes deeper at the same time, tens of thousands of people are in danger of losing water. That is why we came here with this petition to explain the current situation, what our life looks like right now because of the Turow mine and what it could look like if they extend the mining.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n

Petitioners took all the national and trans-boundary steps available to prevent harmful impacts of this project but their voices are not sufficiently heard. Now they are alerting EU authorities that several EU legal norms are being violated: EU water framework directive, Liability directive, EIA and SEA.<\/p>\n\n

EU institutions have already initiated some steps to review EU law violations. Petitions Committee granted an \u201curgency procedure\u201d to the official petition. Several influential members of the Environmental Committee, including the committee’s chair and coordinators of the most important political groups, wrote to the Environmental Commissioner Sinkevicius asking him to treat the complaint regarding the Tur\u00f3w mine with urgency as well. The European Commission recently started EU Pilot procedure with Poland.<\/p>\n\n

However, acute action is needed to maintain a coherent approach between EU policies, including European Green Deal and Transition Fund expenditures on the one hand and national projects, harming the environment and the health of EU citizens pushed through  by national authorities, on the other.<\/p>\n\n

Nikol Krej\u010dov\u00e1 from Greenpeace Czech Republic says:<\/strong>
\u201cOur organisation is trying to stop the extension of Tur\u00f3w mine not only for local negative environmental impacts but also for global impact of the mining and coal burning on climate. We are in the climate crisis now and we need to act not to worsen it. So it would be very irresponsible to continue mining and burning coal for the next 24 years. Czech government issued a negative statement in the transboundary EIA process and it wasn’t taken into account by Polish side at all.\u201d
<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Representatives of the Liberec regional government, Greenpeace Czech Republic, Frank Bold and local citizens affected by the serious negative impacts of Polish coal mine Tur\u00f3w came to the European Parliament…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":5974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20,24,25],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-5957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energeticka-revoluce","tag-zmena-klimatu","tag-aktivni-spolecnost","tag-konec-doby-fosilni","p4-page-type-clanek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5957"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6219,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957\/revisions\/6219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5957"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/czech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=5957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}