Mayor of Moravian village reroutes stream and fells fifty trees without a permit

In the village of Světlá Hora in the Moravian-Silesian Region, mayor Aloiš Šimčík ordered excavators and trucks to dig a new artificial channel for the Skrbovický stream and fill in the old one with rubbish from a local dump — all without official permission, a project plan, or any approval from environmental authorities. To let the machinery reach the site through the forest, more than fifty mature trees were felled on his orders.

The trigger was flooding in autumn 2024, when the stream burst its banks and water flooded the road and cellars of nearby houses, mostly cottages, in part of the village of Dětřichovice. A state of emergency was declared across the entire Moravian-Silesian Region, which includes Světlá Hora, and remained in force until December of that year. It is precisely this state of emergency that the mayor cites to justify his actions, claiming he was merely trying to "divert" the water away from the road and protect municipal property.

As a result of the intervention, the natural course of the mountain stream — located in the heart of the Hrubý Jeseník range — was straightened and, in places, shifted up to 15 metres from its original position, over a stretch of nearly a kilometre and a half. According to surveying data from officials at the Bruntál municipal authority, five separate sections were rerouted, totalling 1.35 kilometres.

Pavel Němčanský, head of the Odra river basin department at the state enterprise Lesy ČR, wrote to the Bruntál municipal authority stating that the intervention entirely lacked any technical or ecological stabilisation measures, creating a real risk of erosion, loss of channel stability, and environmental damage. It was Lesy ČR, as the body responsible for managing the stream, that first reported the problem to the higher authority in Bruntál back in March last year.

An on-site inspection in June last year confirmed that the streambed had indeed been straightened, shifted, and the terrain altered. Officials stated clearly that even under a state of emergency, the mayor had no right to carry out such an intervention — instead of rerouting the stream, the bank could, for instance, have been locally reinforced with stone. Administrative proceedings in the case have still not been opened, although officials confirmed in March this year that they are looking into it.

A separate issue concerns the destroyed protection zone of a memorial tree — a twenty-metre alder more than 200 years old, the largest of its kind in Czechia. On the mayor's orders, an excavator operated within its protected zone as well, something explicitly prohibited by law. This episode is also being examined by the Bruntál authority.

The mayor says he cannot recall exactly how many trees and shrubs were cut down, but noted that the municipality earned around one million crowns from selling the timber. The works, among other irregularities, were also carried out without a building permit.

Some local council members only learned of the operation once trucks and chainsaws were already at work by the stream. According to František Lukovský, former head of the volunteer fire brigade, the flooding situation was not as dire as the mayor describes: firefighters were called out only three or four times, evacuating two people due to a power outage. In his view, it would have been enough to reinforce the washed-out roadside verge — which the regional road authority indeed did later on.

The machinery used to dig the new channel was supplied by entrepreneur and fellow council member Pavel Skála, who ran on the same electoral list as the mayor. Over the course of the current term, his company has received municipal contracts worth more than 6 million crowns — before Šimčík was elected mayor in 2022, such contracts were virtually nonexistent.

Cottage owners in the area have their own grievances against the mayor: the old streambed was filled in with rubbish from the dump — old carpets, glass, scrap metal. After residents complained, a container was brought in, which they filled three-quarters full with dug-up waste.

According to Hana Kutačková, an official from the water management department, the breach of water law is clear, but since the total length of the altered section is under two kilometres, the case does not formally qualify as a criminal environmental offence, and the matter has not been referred to the prosecutor's office or police. The worst the municipality now faces is administrative proceedings under water, construction, and nature protection legislation.

The mayor himself disagrees with the officials' findings and is appealing every decision and inspection report, vowing to take the matter all the way to the regional level. Asked whether he would do the same again — reroute the stream and fell the trees — if he had to decide anew, Šimčík replied: "I'd probably do exactly the same. Maybe even faster."

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Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz