NGO: Miner Rio Tinto’s Drilling Site Leakage Has Destroyed Crops in the village of Gornje Nedeljice

Gornje Nedeljice (BETAPHOTO/SASA DJORDJEVIC)

We Won’t Give Jadar Up association, opposing lithium mining in the area around Loznica in western Serbia, has published on social networks a video of the village of Gornje Nedeljice where leakage from one of miner Rio Tinto’s drill sites have destroyed all crops on the surrounding farming land. 

The video shows burnt crops over an area of 50 meters in diameter of the leaking drill site, indexed JDRHG 21. Environmentalist Nebojsa Petkovic has told BETA that the more than 550 meters deep drill has been discharging “various toxins.”  

“This drill site has been leaking for a long time, and now it has been demonstrated yet again that nothing can grow in its surrounding. That piece of farming land, where soybean is grown, features four drills, two of which have been leaking. Groundwater has been coming out from those drills, going 556.5 meters in depth, contaminated with hazardous metals such as lithium, boron, arsenic,”;  he explained.  

“For four years now we have been warning about drill leakage, but Rio Tinto has failed to try to address this problem. Around 100 of our children live only 200 meters away from those drills,” Petkovic stressed. He added that according to European laws and standards, radioactive decay should also be measured in those drills.