Visit-Montenegro.com: ‘Saint’ enlarged for three thousand square meters
On the basis of comparing the most recent maps to those dating back to Austro-Hungarian period it is indicated that the island of Sveti Marko wasn’t shrinking: ‘They are literally catching at straws in endeavors to justify spatial and environmental crime they are about to commit claiming that bora wind and soil erosion caused major degradation of the island’ – Branko Nikolic, an engineer from Tivat, remarks.
Podgorica – After maritime authorities recently denied one of “arguments” of the Russian company “Metropol” that there were always some shipping accidents and incidents on Tunja shallows, a denial of the second key-reason for which the Russian “Metropol” should allegedly cover Tunja shallows with concrete and built there an artificial peninsula “Palazzo” has been issued. Namely, the explanation of the Russians and some Montenegro Government officials from Tivat that the island of Sveti Marko should be “protected from very strong wind-wave induced soil erosion” by paving Tunja shallows with concrete were directly denied due to information from 130 year-old Austro-Hungarian land registry.
However, the initiators of the petition for preserving the island of Sveti Marko and Tunja shallows came into possession of the original Austro-Hungarian map of the largest island in the Bay of Kotor dating from 1873, which confirms that alleged soil erosion of the northern side of the island hasn’t occurred over the past 136 years. They reached this conclusion by comparing the old map with the latest ones based on satellite images.
- When comparing Austro-Hungarian map to the latest maps we came to a conclusion that the soil erosion of the capes and the northern side of the island was insignificant, even if aftermath of the destructive earthquake from 1979 was not taken into consideration – and we do not have this kind of information. The only significant change was, in fact, enlargement of the island for approximately 3 thousand square meters on the part of the Velja Uvala Beach which occurred by building a plateau on the main beach of the tourism settlement on Sveti Marko Island “Club Mediterranee”. I assume, and it can be checked easily, that the island was enlarged when this settlement was built at the beginning of the ‘60s – a petitioner and an engineer Branko Nikolic from Tivat said for “Vijesti”.
He added that “the island was enlarged in such a way that the alleged erosion could take its course within the next few thousand years, at a rough estimate, but the island would still cover the same surface area as in 1987.”
The initiators of the petition dismissed a claim of the Mayor of Tivat, Dragan Kankaras, as utterly unfounded. Nonetheless, he claimed that the surface area of the island of Sveti Marko has reduced “for seven thousand square meters over the last twenty years” because of the eroding agents such as wind and the sea.
“They are literally catching at straws in endeavors to justify spatial and environmental crime they are about to commit claiming that bora wind and soil erosion caused major degradation of the island and that the process is still going on. Of course, they didn’t name any professional or scientific sources, solid evidence or piece of information to back up their story of destructive soil erosion which took place until now and which presents menacing threat in the future too. It was clear to those familiar with the island of Sveti Marko and Tunja shallows that they were exaggerating - mentioning meters instead of millimeters and kilometers instead of meters” – emphasized Nikolic saying that the latest comparative analysis using old Austro-Hungarian map and new satellite maps speak in favor of his story.
The Russian company “Metropol” announced filling up on the sandbank Tunja which would enlarge the island of Sveti Marko for another 12 ha reasoning that this should be done in order “to protect the island from further soil erosion by wind and the sea” as well as to prevent “many accidents from happening”, and according to them, there were a lot of vessel accidents in the Tunja shallows.
Recently, the Harbor Master’s Office in Kotor released information that there was not a single reported accident in Tunja shallows over the past 30 years based on their official records. In addition to this, very precise Austro-Hungarian land registry denies claims of alleged soil erosion and progressive disappearing of the island. Thus, the main arguments to support the intention of the Russian company to cover with concrete Tunja shallows and fill up 120 thousand square meters of the sea surface in the Bay of Kotor were discredited.
By S.L.