The Veles Public Health Centre measured the Topolka and Babuna rivers in June. The result is the same as previous summers: not recommended for swimming.

The Topolka near Čaška is class three because of turbidity and microbiological status. The Topolka near Veles is class five for turbidity and class three for bacterial contamination, ammonia and nitrites. The Babuna, at the spot known as First Beach, is class three for bacterial contamination, with ammonia and manganese present.

Both rivers rise on Jakupica. This is not an industrial canal but mountain water that picks up something on the way to Veles which nobody names in the statement.

Where the people of Veles are supposed to swim

The answer offered to residents is the town pool and hotel facilities. Mladost lake has been closed to swimming for two years. The Vardar has not been measured for years, because nobody swims in it anyway.

So in a town with two mountain rivers and one lake, the only legally recommended water is the kind you pay to enter.

The measuring exists, the cleaning does not

What makes this news rather than an annual reminder is the phrase „this summer too” in the statement. Somebody measures these waters regularly. Somebody knows which class they are. That data exists, it is published, and it changes nothing.

Bacterial contamination in a river means something unclean is entering it - most often untreated wastewater from settlements along the bed. That is not a mystery requiring investigation. It is a question of sewage infrastructure, of inspection, and of who is obliged to provide it.

The ammonia and nitrites in the Topolka near Veles say the same thing more precisely - those are indicators of organic pollution, not of natural turbidity from rain.

The question nobody asks

The Public Health Centre did its job: measured, classified, published. That is its mandate and it cannot clean rivers.

The question is for those who can. If „this summer too” means last summer and the one before were the same, then there is a run of years in which someone received a report about class three and class five and did nothing. Mladost lake has been closed for two years. The rivers are dirty every summer. Meanwhile, in the same region, investments in car parks, multi-storey garages and facades are being announced.

Nobody is asking for a river to be a swimming pool. The question is more modest: is there a plan with a deadline at all, or is measuring every June the entire policy we have.