site.btaLocals, Concessionaires Clash over Handling of Beaches in Sozopol Municipality

Bourgas, April 13 (BTA) - After the Smokinya North Beach in
Sozopol Municipality (Southeastern Bulgaria) has been ploughed
up for a second year in a row, outraged local residents have
alerted the competent institutions. Photos and videos showing a
tractor levelling the beach were circulated on social media at
the end of last week.

Environmental activist Atanas Roussev told National Radio that
the beach concessionaire is breaking the law while the
Environment Inspectorate is looking the other way.

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister and Tourism Minister Mariyana
Nikolova ordered a check into the case. A Tourism Ministry team
will survey the coastline for any violations and will determine
whether there are any grounds to penalize the concessionaire,
the Ministry said in a press release.

For its part, the Bourgas Regional Environment and Water
Inspectorate has banned the use of heavy earthmoving equipment
on the beach.

Beach concessionaire Ivan Alexiev has denied any wrongdoing. He
explained to the media that his workers were merely cleaning the
 beach of garbage and the debris of disused beach
establishments, that the work was duly authorized, and that the
sand dunes, which cannot be tampered with by law, had been
staked off at 2.5 m by a cadastre firm and were being carefully
preserved.

On Tuesday, Sozopol Mayor Tihomir Yanakiev said that Town Hall
had been notified by the concessionaires of eight beaches in the
 municipality about their plans to clean and prepare the beaches
 for the summer season, as required by their concession
contracts. Yanakiev explained that town hall is not empowered to
 control the concession relations and said that aggressive beach
 cleaning is at variance with the  Black Sea Coast Development
Act, under which the natural landscape and the cultural and
historical heritage must be protected.
 
The Municipality has written to the Tourism Ministry, proposing
a ban on the construction of levees on beaches that are not
affected by erosion, a prohibition of sand laying by heavy or
light machinery, and formulating a procedure for beach
maintenance and sanitation.

Later in the day, the Bourgas District Prosecution Office said
it had ordered the Bourgas Regional Directorate of the Interior
Ministry to conduct an immediate check into reports about
ploughing up of the Smokinya Beach in Sozopol. The purpose is to
 prevent and discontinue any administrative violations of the
Black Sea Coast Development Act and to avert and rectify their
harmful consequences by taking administrative measures against
natural or legal persons, of which the Prosecution Office must
be notified by April 19.

In an apparently unrelated development which, however, might be
seen as retaliation for the ecologists' resistance to the
commercialization of the beaches, Yanakiev has appointed a
commission to check campsites and camping areas near beaches
within the municipality, follow up on alerts about irregular
camping and take action if any such is detected, Town Hall said
in a press release on Monday. NV/DT, LG



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