The investment in Bumbeşti is in an extremely advanced phase, but there we have to protect a fish that has no economic importance, as well as a crayfish that has never been found, said on Wednesday, Bogdan Badea, president of Hidroelectrica’s Management.
“In Bumbeşti we have resumed all the procedures in accordance with the current legislation. We are in an extremely advanced phase. We have submitted the documentation for more than two and a half months to enter the final stages of the assessment for obtaining the environmental agreement. For now, we have not received any feedback from the authorities. In this case we have a number of tasks given by the environmental authorities regarding the measures we need to implement in order to be in line with what the Protected Areas require. We have to protect an alder that is found all over Europe, we have to protect this fish that, also from public information, does not represent and has no economic importance, and we have to protect a crayfish that has never been found, but would have conditions to have a habitat there. In such ridiculous situations we find ourselves with the measures we should implement. Moreover, we have an obligation to look for that crayfish for ten years. No one has found it yet… In Răstoliţa, since 2017, when we obtained the Government Decision of expropriation on that investment objective, we made all the steps needed, only that similar to the situation in Bumbeşti, the authorities ask us to revise the environmental agreement on our own initiative, although we have the building permit,” Badea stressed, within the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for establishing the causes of the substantial increase of the prices of natural gas and electricity.
He added that it is not normal that once approvals and agreements have been received for any large, long-term investment objective of commissioning, a company should be forced to stop work “and ask the authorities if there are still valid or not,” according to Agerpres.
Hidroelectrica announced, mid-last year, that it planned to execute new projects with an estimated value of almost 18 billion lei, with a total installed capacity of 713.62 MW, which can ensure an average annual production of 3,396.79 GWh/year, according to the investment strategy published by the company.
One of the projects aims at the Hydropower Development (AHE) of the Jiu River on the Livezeni – Bumbeşti sector, and the estimated term of commissioning was 2022.
AHE Răstoliţa is another project, the completion of the investment objective being decided based on the results of the financial analyzes and the profitability calculations regarding the technical-economic efficiency performed by the internal commissions of Hidroelectrica. By completing these works, the energy input in the national energy system will be of about 46.3 GWh annually.