Viktor Prtenjača warns that water sources in the Biograd area could be contaminated within ten years and calls on the State Attorney's Office to investigate what happened at the landfill.
Viktor Prtenjača, the former long-serving HDZ mayor of Polača Municipality and now president of the local DOMiNO branch, has made serious allegations about years of hazardous waste dumping at the Gornja Jagodnja landfill. According to his claims, as reported by Zadarski list, the waste is the same or similar to that which has contaminated sites in Gospić and Benkovac. The landfill was managed by Komunalno društvo Polača (KDP), a utility company founded by the municipality.
Prtenjača publicly accused KDP and municipal leaders of allowing hazardous waste to be brought to Gornja Jagodnja. "This is the same trail, the same octopus, the same thieving story of these con artists and bandits who, out of greed, are willing to poison their own people," he said, adding that KDP employees had recently come to him to complain because they were unaware that hazardous waste had been arriving for months.
The Gornja Jagodnja landfill was permanently closed on February 3, 2025, and Komunalno društvo Polača was struck off the court register on June 5, 2025. The landfill covers 51,330 square meters, and by June 30, 2022, a total of 21,066.38 cubic meters of waste had been deposited there.
For the remediation, the municipality applied for co-financing from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO) and was approved €2,578,815. The contract was awarded to the company Bemix from Šibenik with a bid of €1,599,343.75, and the work is to be completed within six months. Prtenjača believes the state urgently approved the funds precisely to cover up what happened at the landfill.
Prtenjača warns that within ten years at the latest, when leachate from the waste seeps into the groundwater, contamination could occur. "At risk are the Kakma spring, which supplies water to the wider Biograd area, as well as other sources: Mali and Veliki Stabanj and Biba in Vrana," he warned.
He particularly highlighted the Veliki Stabanj spring, about two kilometers from the landfill, from which drinking water has been transported by tanker trucks all these years. "There will be contamination of hundreds of boreholes from which people draw water for their crops and gardens, and these particles will penetrate into Vransko Polje. Given that this field is a Croatian oasis, untouched nature, I fear-and I assure you-that a terrible ecocide will occur," he said.
Prtenjača claims he personally went to KDP to ask what was being dumped, but was told it was waste from the energy plant in the Šopot business zone in Benkovac. "I didn't believe what was happening until a year and a half ago, when one night I saw two trucks carrying more than 50 tons of waste arriving at the landfill," he recounted.
According to him, the landfill accepted municipal waste from Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Korčula, Orebić, and the entire Biograd and Benkovac areas. The goal, he claims, was to bury the hazardous waste as quickly as possible under larger quantities of mixed municipal waste.
"It is well known that this type of waste must be stored in special barrels and reinforced concrete containers. Here, something will happen that people are not aware of, since probably dozens of truckloads of this waste have been brought in," he stressed, calling on investigative authorities to determine whether the waste was accompanied by the required documentation.
Prtenjača described how KDP hired an employee to operate the compactor and the machine used to push the waste. According to his claims, this employee was rewarded with a fuel card and a good salary, "just to be obedient and loyal to those who tasked him with hiding the dumping of this waste every day, covering it up by the morning after it was brought in the night before." The employee, he said, was retired when the company was shut down.
Prtenjača believes the municipal company was liquidated precisely to cover up the traces of these operations. "The current mayor was rewarded with the position of president of the HDZ Polača branch, which has since been dissolved, giving a hint as to whose orders were followed in bringing this waste to the landfill. It's not up to me to determine that," he concluded.
He also stated that he is at the disposal of the State Attorney's Office for any information he has. "I am entering this fight now because of the people who trust me and because I am a representative of DOMiNO, and I am obliged to inform the public about this phenomenon," Prtenjača emphasized.
