UNMIK on Air

The contamination of the Batllava Lake

By Birol Urcan

The village of Orllan is a small settlement in the Podujeva region.

Although the village is build right next to Batlava Lake that supplies around 600.000 people with drinking water, the inhabitants of Orlan itself do not have running water in their houses.

Natural sound

Salih Azemi lives with his 7 family members just a few meters away from the lake but his way of getting water is still a very primitive one.

Cut 1:

“This lake supplies the whole of Prishtina and the Llap region with drinking water. But we who are very close to the lake are not getting any.

This is not fair. Nobody takes care of us. But maybe the time will come that somebody will do.”

The people of Orllan are not the only ones dealing with this problem

Some 11 villages in this region face the same problem. These communities together have around 8 thousand inhabitants.

Fahri Hoxha is one of the village heads of Orllan.

He claims that they have asked for help from various institutions,

but so far didn’t get any serious response

Besides the lack of a steady drinking water supply to the villages he brings up an issue with

Cut 2:

“But a greater problem is the lack of sewage system.

600.000 Kosovars use this water, which is being polluted very seriously, because all the excrements and dirty waters of 11 villages flow directly to the lake.“

So does the absence of a sewage system in many places around Batlava make it dangerous to drink the water that comes from

the lake?

Natural sound: water at the laboratory

The National Institute of Public Health Kosova recently took 6

samples of water from Batlava

samples of water from Batlava lake and indeed 5 out of 6 showed an excrement contamination.

Cut 3:

“Maybe for the moment being, and I say this with full responsibility, the situation is not dangerous… we monitor the quality of the water every day but if this contamination goes on in the future we could face very serious epidemiologic consequences”

We still have proper drinking water because the water of Batlava lake is cleaned with chlorine by the water company before distribution.

But chlorine will only be effective until a certain point of contamination.

Prishtina water company, before named Batllava water company, says they have done everything possible from their side to solve the issue of water supply and sewage system for the villages around Batlava Lake.

Cut 4:

“The water company Prishtina is interested to give its contribution for solving this problem; we already have prepared all the technical documentation for drinking water supply system.”

But they lack money.

To implement their plans the company needs 2 million Euros more.

The villages around Batlava/Batllavë Lake are part of Podujeva municipality. Usually the system for it’s community.

Cut 4:

In previous two years the municipality have municipality is responsible for water supply and a sewage spared an amount of 150.000 euro for this project, with hope that it will find a donation of the understanding of the neighbor municipalities and of the “central level but I think the possibilities have not been used and the problem has not been understood as something that should have priority, and the priority has been given to some other projects”

Then who should give the money for this project?

“The government should, as the highest authority for this issue; the ministries are for practical issues, but the most responsible ministry is the one for environment and spatial planning.”

However, the Ministry of Environment does not want to comment on this issue. They claim it’s not their responsibility.

With lake Batlava/Batllavë being the main water supplier for almost 1/3 of Kosovo’s population the seriousness of the issue is obvious. However, nobody yet took up the responsibility of doing something about the lake’s water quality.

So if the necessary 2 million euros, around 3 % of the Kosovo consolidated budget, are not spend to fix this problem, then in a few years Prishtina and it’s surrounding municipalities will have a serious problem that money alone can not solve. Because according to experts once the water is spoiled it is a long and difficult process to ever get it clean again.