On Tuesday, April 4, 2017, Lviv Regional State Administration held the meeting, where once again the governor acted as an intermediary between Lviv city council and villagers of Malekhiv trying to bring the parties to compromise in addressing the pressing issues of utilization of waste filtrates and preventing pollution of land and water resources with filtrates.
The meeting, attended by all city council officials in charge of Hrybovychi landfill and the mayor have shown a complete lack of professionalism, inconsistency of officials, populism and unwillingness to listen to opinions from the outside.
So, once again Lviv city council decided to use the help of Lviv Regional State Administration to make the head of Malekhiv village council and residents agree to allocate additional land around the landfill for rent in order to “legalize” the dam that restrains the lake from the filtrates. The main stated reasons of the officials was disastrous state of the dam and the need to strengthen it, but none of Lviv city council officials nor the project authors could confirm that the dam is in disastrous state and explain what works for its strengthening the Lviv city council plans to perform.
Oleh Synyutka reminded Lviv city council that the dam was constructed immediately after the tragedy on the landfill on 30 May 2016 during 2 nights, without additional funding, without any project because of the urgency of the situation, and to date none of the actors involved claimed compensation for their services, but the mayor said that they plan to pay to those who did the works.
In addition, all participants concluded that the dam is stable and does not require reinforcement. However, currently there is a critical situation with filtrate leakage from the dam, at the point of waste heap collapse, and therefore it is necessary either to extend it or to construct a drainage channel. Unfortunately, designers from Lviv city council never planned such activities, and as a result of repeated requests from the Chair of Lviv Regional State Administration they promised to include such work into the project of strengthening the dam.
Also, the head of the Malekhiv village council noted that numerous letters from Lviv city council to the village council with the request to allocate a land lot did not contain any project documentation, nor calculations or maps confirming the area and location of the land lot requested by Lviv city council. Therefore, members of the village council and the community do not give consent for land allocation to Lviv city council. Officials of Lviv city council did not attend even a single session of the village council, did not present the project for which they need the land, which does not help the dialogue and search for a compromise.
Thus, more than 10 months after the tragedy Lviv mayor’s office showed its inability to minimize the impact of Hrybovychi landfill on the environment, to hear the views of other parties, experts and begin a professional discussion.
