Elimination of environmental burdens: Ostramo lagoons remediation cost nearly CZK 3 billion, solution of the situation is not clear even after 20 years
Press release for audit No. 17/04 - 27. 11. 2017
The Supreme Audit Office focused on elimination of old environmental burdens incurred before privatisation. The auditors reviewed the system settings for the removal of these burdens and also selected a sample of three sites - the Ostramo Lagoon, the premises of former KARA Trutnov, and ČKD ELEKTRONIKA. The audit has shown that the removal of environmental burdens is slow and inefficient, which brings extra expenditures to the state. Since the start of elimination of ecological burdens in 1991, about half of the planned remediation projects have been completed. One third of the unfinished remediation has not begun yet, although the decisions on the projects were made in 1994-1998.
The unresolved site remediation brings other expenditures to the state. The Ministry of Finance has been spending money on some sites for a long time, even before proceeding to the remediation that should eliminate the environmental burdens forever. The reason is that their condition will not further deteriorate. At the end of 2016, the Ministry spent a total of 340 million Czech crowns, almost half of it covered the premises of OKK Koksovny, which has been maintained for 20 years. Why the remediation in this site has not started yet, the Ministry of Finance did not explain.
Ostramo oil lagoon is an example of a long-term elimination of old environmental burdens. The solution of this situation has been dealt with for 20 years and the Ministry of Finance has paid CZK 2.8 billion for the remediation of the lagoons. Despite this, the technical solution for completing the remediation was not clarified until the end of the audit, it is not known how much more money will be needed to complete, the deadline remains to be unknown until the environmental burden in this site is definitively eliminated. In relation to resolve the situation of the Lagoon Ostramo, the Ministry of Finance had also paid 136 million crowns for a machine which turned out to be inappropriate for work in this site and remained unused.
The Ministry of Finance paid over 60 billion crowns for the elimination of old ecological burdens incurred prior to privatisation by the end of 2016. However, the cost of additional remediation is in tens of billions of crowns. By the middle of 2017, the resort had eight and a half billion crowns for this site at its disposal, of which six and a half billion were tied to cover contracted liabilities, only two billion crowns remained free.
Communication department
Supreme Audit Office