A five-member bench of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) ruled on July 13 that Environment and Water Affairs Minister Djevdet Chakurov has to pronounce his final decision on the Dundee Precious Metals (DPM) gold-mining project in Krumovgrad. This was confirmation of a decision by a three-member SAC bench on February 13 2007, which rejected Chakurov’s silent refusal to give the green light to the company to dig gold in Bulgaria. The reason given was the incompleteness of the environmental impact assessment Dundee presented to the Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs.

DPM’s investment in Krumovgrad was cancelled by a SAC decision in November 2005 and the company withdrew from the town in the middle of 2006, also closing down its information centre, after it held public hearings on its investment project in Krumovgrad and the village Zvunarka. Local people opposed the project.

DPM media statements said that Chakurov was impeding the company’s activities in Chelopech, having twice failed to give his decision on the Supreme Expert Ecological Council’s decision, which allowed the mine field and the equipment building. On this issue, the SAC five-member bench said that Chakurov should pronounce his final decision.

In response to the newest SAC decision on the mine in Krumovgrad, local environmental organisation Life for Krumovgrad, established in 2003, together with the municipality,  mayor Sebichan Mechmed and all political parties are organising a protest on July 20. “We will defend the cause until the end,” Life for Krumovgrad chairperson Michail Vassilev told The Sofia Echo on July 18. People from the town and the region do not want to allow gold mining to start in the area. The main industry in the area is tobacco production and according to Vassilev, no one will buy their products any more if someone start to extract the gold from the hills, damaging the local environment. “The land, the air and the soil will go to hell because some economical factors want to force this on us,” Vassilev said.