Slavonski Brod residents demand drinking water from Prime Minister Plenković

SLAVONSKI BROD, (Patria) - Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, accompanied by three ministers, Defense Damir Krstičević, Health Milan Kujundžić, and Environmental Protection and Energy Tomislav Ćorić, arrived in Slavonski Brod on Saturday afternoon to participate in a Civil Protection Headquarters meeting, held due to the confirmed contamination of drinking water, which is unavailable in the entire city until further notice. Residents, around 90,000 of them, have bought water from stores and gas stations and are filling canisters and bottles from cisterns distributed throughout the settlements.

Outside the building where the meeting is being held, Plenković was met by several citizens, including a woman with a child in her arms who asked him if his child in Zagreb also drinks bottled water. Citizens demanded that Plenković resolve the newly created situation. After the meeting, Plenković stated that water analyses will continue, and the real cause of the contamination and the incident on the product pipeline will be determined.

New quantities of bottled water will be delivered to Slavonski Brod from commodity reserves. Plenković said he regretted that this happened just before Easter.

- We will do everything to connect the water supply system of Slavonski Brod with the system in Sikirevci. The Ministry will obtain permits; as far as I know, it's about 150 meters that need to be built to connect to the Slavonski Brod water supply system, said Plenković, emphasizing that this will be done within 10 to 15 days and would then be a permanent alternative solution.

Minister Kujundžić said that citizens should not be worried, although it has already been stated that hydrocarbon values exceed four times the permissible concentration.

The water contamination was caused by the leakage of petroleum derivatives from an old oil pipeline (product pipeline) that was supposed to be put into operation, i.e., connected to the Refinery in Bosanski Brod according to the agreement between the Government of Croatia and Republika Srpska.

Although everything happened on March 28, it was only late last night that it was announced that the water in Slavonski Brod is not drinkable. The scale of the ecological disaster has not yet been fully presented to the public.