site.btaWWF Bulgaria Requested More Time to Review Documentation on River Navigation Project Danube

WWF Bulgaria insisted on extending the deadline for access to the documentation on the Fast Danube project to improve navigation on the Danube. The organization believes that another month is needed to review the information before the public consultation on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), WWF Bulgaria said in a press release on Friday. The reasoning for the requested extension is "the vast documentation of the case, the great significance of the project, and the serious number of affected parties - 12 municipalities and over 70 town halls." Currently, public hearings in the twelve municipalities are scheduled to take place between January 23 and 30.

The matter is complex, it takes time even just to navigate which are the most important documents that need to be reviewed depending on the interest of the parties involved, noted Katerina Rakovska, Policy and Biodiversity Senior Expert.

The project envisages changing navigation conditions in the Bulgarian-Romanian section of the Danube by dredging, the WWF said. In three places - at the towns of Becket and Belene and the village of Popina - it is planned to build large engineering structures in the form of artificial islands, buoys and chevrons to guide the river flow, the experts add. Opinions of experts in geodesy indicate that there is a real danger of activating old landslides located on the higher Bulgarian bank, especially in the area of Oryahovo and the villages of Orsoya, Dobri Dol and others, WWF said. The contractor of the project to improve the navigation conditions in the common Bulgarian-Romanian section of the river is the Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube, the organisation added.

In November 2023, the government announced that the Transport and Communications Minister and the Regional Development and Public Works Minister were taking urgent measures to complete the EIA activities for FAST Danube and to prepare the investment plan for the implementation of the project activities. The project is planned to be submitted for funding under the Connecting Europe Facility 2021-2027, with a deadline for applications of January 31, 2024. The main objective of the project is to improve navigation conditions and increase traffic safety in the common stretch of the Danube between Bulgaria and Romania by increasing the number of navigable days per year from 280 to 340.