Recreational ponds near the Vardar in Petrovec tied to unregulated sand excavation

Two new recreational fishing ponds planned near the Vardar river in the Municipality of Petrovec sit roughly one hundred metres from the river on its eastern floodplain, according to reporting that examined the sites. Residents of the village of Oreshani on the opposite bank and owners of nearby weekend cottages have watched for about a year as a hole of several thousand square metres filled with water.

People connected with firms that extract sand and prepare concrete have, in the past two years, moved into a different line of business: creating ponds for stocked recreational fishing. The transition involves digging large holes close to the river and removing earth and sand from those sites.

Work without concession or payment for material

The excavation activity has proceeded without concession procedures and without payments for the extracted material. Under current practice, sand removed during construction work — whether for a house, a building, a road or for a pond — is not classified as an exploited mineral raw material. It is not addressed in the other applicable laws related to construction, and ownership or disposal of the excavated sand is left to the property owner or investor.

In the two cases identified, investors in the recreational fishing ponds also have business interests tied to sand use. Authorities or other parties have not yet provided published information on what happened to the sand and earth taken from the sites.

Local residents have expressed concern at large excavations appearing near the river and at how those works are being regulated, while the legal gap over the status of excavated sand leaves uncertainty about whether the activity should be treated as mining, construction waste management or something else.

The factual details above raise questions for regulators about whether current rules sufficiently cover extraction of riverbank material when it coincides with the creation of private fishing ponds.

Photo: press material from the event