Ostrava waste dump: Czech ministry closes case, rejects experts

In July, the Czech Ministry of the Environment closed the case of the Heřmanice dump in Ostrava, where almost 600,000 tonnes of waste lie, without naming a culprit. The ministry deemed the key expert reports less reliable because they lacked one formal page.

Expert Zdeněk Čížek, who has written 250 opinions and about 1,500 reviews, heard for the first time in 25 years of practice that his work was unreliable. In his words, it is “something unpleasant and incomprehensible”: he called the ministry’s actions “total outrage”.

Why the expert reports were rejected

The investigation lasted three years: the aim was to establish who had covered a huge area with waste. The Ostrava construction firm Ridera Bohemia was suspected. After Igor Červený (Motorists) took over the ministry, it took the case away from the Czech Environmental Inspectorate and then closed it. Not one key argument against the firm was accepted, while the ministry fully backed its defence.

The ministry does not deny that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste are illegally stored in the dump. But the reports by Čížek and hydrogeologist Jiří Tylčer were given less weight: they contain no liability statement, that is, the sheet in which an expert confirms being aware of possible criminal punishment for providing false data. According to the decision by ministry department director Tomislav Střelec, this reduces trust in the findings.

Čížek objects: until now nobody had required this of him, and such a page is not usually attached in administrative proceedings. In his words, only the police and the courts demand it. Had the ministry asked, he would have added it himself. Tylčer says the same: nobody asked him to supplement the document. The Environmental Inspectorate confirmed that the formal defect can be remedied and does not in itself make the expert’s conclusions incorrect.

What is at stake

By closing the case without a culprit, the ministry lifted from Ridera Bohemia the threat of having to remove the waste at its own expense. It is estimated that this would have cost hundreds of millions of crowns, possibly up to a billion. As things stand, those costs would now have to be paid by the state.

The dump belongs to the state-owned company Diamo. It is on fire, and to keep the flames from reaching a neighbouring landfill of highly toxic coking-plant waste, the state built a dividing wall, in effect a huge trench 440 metres long and 40 metres wide. Ridera Bohemia was commissioned to fill it in. Three years ago an inspection found chunks of concrete, wood, plastic and cables in the body of the dump, in other words combustible materials. The firm worked there until 2022.

Diamo calls the ministry’s decision too harsh and the exclusion of the expert report from the case absurd. According to company spokesman Tomáš Indrej, it was the only opinion in the case from an expert with the required specialisation. The ministry also reproaches the experts for an “incorrect methodology”, but does not explain which methodology is correct.

What the firm and the owners of part of the dump say

Ridera Bohemia claims it filled the wall only with the prescribed certified material, not with untreated construction waste. The firm believes the inspectorate conducted the case in a biased way and declares its innocence and an unfair process.

The company OKK Koksovny, which owns part of the dump, relied on Tylčer’s report. Its representative Jindřich Vaněk said the ministry dealt selectively with formalities and did not look into the substance, that is, the waste that was found. Even with formal shortcomings, in his words, such an opinion can serve at least as documentary evidence.

The ministry does not comment on the decision: a criminal complaint was filed over the ministry’s actions in the summer, and while it is being examined, the ministry is not answering questions about the dump. Besides the expert reports, it also rejected some of Diamo’s photographs: on some the place and time are unclear, while others, with GPS coordinates and an exact date, were taken after the firm had already left the dump.

The result is an unusual situation: there is waste in the dump, but no culprit. There is nobody who for years hauled rubbish there and saved hundreds of millions of crowns on a legal landfill.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz