At the beginning of March, the MOEW ordered inspections throughout the country for the presence of waste in unauthorized locations, including illegal dumping in river beds and watershed ravines and their adjacent areas.

Today, the Minister of Environment and Water, Petar Dimitrov, inspected the compliance with the instruction given by the Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water (RIEW) - Montana to the mayors of the municipalities in the region by the end of March to take action to clean up and prevent the dumping of waste in unauthorised places.

An on-site inspection was carried out on signals of unregulated pollution, in which MP Petar Petrov, Deputy Mayor of Montana Municipality, municipal councillors, the mayor of the village of Blagovo and the director of the Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water (RIEW) - Montana participated.

Upon inspection in the land of the villages of Blagovo, Cold Buche and Lipen it was found that there are areas cleaned of waste, the riverbed of the Village Bar does not drain wastewater from the surrounding houses, but there are also heavily polluted areas with construction waste, mixed household waste and used tires. A contaminated area of approximately one hectare has been identified on the site of a former sand, gravel and clay quarry, which also contains a water area. The waste is pushed into the water, some of it is ringed, with signs of machining. A representative of the Municipality of Montana and the Mayor of the village of Blagovo stated that a check of the property registry had identified the owners of the land.

The mayor of Montana municipality has already been instructed to control the cleaning of the sites identified during the inspection and to provide information to the RIEW - Montana by 23 May on the measures taken to identify the actual perpetrators of the violations and to take administrative penal measures.

During today's inspection in the presence of Minister Petar Dimitrov, "new" unregulated landfills not mentioned in the received signals were also discovered, some of them located in municipal properties. The participants in the inspection discussed possible joint actions to put an end to the practice of unregulated waste dumping. The Montana Municipality is committed to installing cameras at possible locations to track illegal waste disposal activities in the countryside.

The RIEW - Montana will carry out a follow-up control of the execution of the given prescriptions and in case of violations will apply the administrative-penal measures provided by the law, as well as will notify the prosecutor's office about the violations.

According to the Waste Management Act, a fine of BGN 2 000 to BGN 10 000 is imposed on natural persons for non-compliance with a prescription, and a pecuniary sanction of BGN 5 000 to BGN 20 000 on legal persons.