The Municipal Council of Burgas rejected the report of the councilors of the “Middle European Class” /MEC/ for the purchase of 10 devices for measuring radon in kindergartens on the territory of the municipality.
This proposal sparked a heated debate during today’s regular session of the local parliament, which lasted nearly an hour and a half.
First, at the opening of the session today, on the motion of Georgi Manev, the report was moved forward by 13 seats. His argument – it is populist. This request of his was approved by a large majority.
All the reports before the one on the purchase of 10 radon measuring devices in kindergartens were adopted in the Chamber without any debate.
Surprisingly for many, the first to speak was the Secretary of the Municipality of Burgas Bozhidar Kanchev. He announced that not 10, but 30 devices had already been ordered from a Norwegian company at the beginning of April:
“This is a proposal to purchase detectors to monitor the level of a natural gas. First of all, I would like to tell you that within the scope of the activities of the national plan to reduce the risk of radon exposure, the Regional Health Inspectorate-Burgas, together with the national centre, will cover absolutely all schools on the territory of the Burgas Region – 148 school buildings.
With regard to kindergartens, I would like to tell you that we have experience of dealing with non-standard situations. In the sense that it has been artificially created in order to create a problem where there is no problem or there is simply no reason to create a situation of uncertainty and tension. I go back 16 or 17 years, very early in the mandate, and there was a similar situation then. Again, there was a group of municipal councillors, there was a cable television station that was involved in this issue, and it was about the impact of electromagnetic radiation from the mobile operators when they were putting the antennas on the apartment blocks.
Then we decided and bought an electromagnetic wave monitoring station. The moment we started using it, paying special attention to those people who were the most vocal and complained, after we took measurements, somehow with a magic wand all complaints about headaches, tinnitus, etc. disappeared.
We are offered to really make an observation of something that is not caused by human activity or negligence, an accident. We are talking about the presence of a natural gas that has existed as long as planet earth has existed, and against this background we have all grown up and lived until the first man on earth. The conclusions of course cannot be disputed by medical professionals, physicists etc. But we can not but say , that these same specialists have determined as more dangerous than this gas something that is not spoken about. That is smoking. But it is not talked about in this way. But having had this experience, I would like to inform you that we, at the beginning of the month of vapour, ordered not 10 but 30 detectors of one of the brands that you are proposing. So along the lines of monitoring and just as a good practice, we have taken these actions and I leave it to you to judge, given that we are now waiting for 30 to be delivered to us because they have delayed a little bit. Given that the National Centre is monitoring another 9. Did it also make sense to buy 10 more?”
The floor was then taken by councillor Georgi Manev, who sharply attacked the SEC petitioners. Subsequently, he announced regarding radon:
“Radon is treated by opening a window. Do you know how long the monitoring lasts? It is 6 months. And for us to monitor and spend money on something that is not mandated by law. They’re playing with populism to the point of embarrassing parents with something that’s nothing to worry about.”
“We have seen no arguments here to support what the gentleman before me said. Yes, it is true that the RHI will have machines to measure radon levels in nurseries and other establishments. But they need a timeframe of 6 months to 1 year. That is why and precisely so that we don’t bring panic among the population for the dearest thing we have, which is children. That is why we want to purchase such devices that will show the presence of radon now”, announced Stoyan Tsarev, one of the petitioners, in response to Manev.
“There is no way, despite the additional clarifying report submitted, I believe that such a proposal is rather inappropriate. Mr Kanchev’s statement was strong enough, I do not think the report should have been accepted. Colleagues from the CEC, I have told you that you cannot expect the municipal councillors to have spoken about accepting a report in which you quote statistics, analyses, but I would very much ask you to apply where you got the specific statistics from. You can’t have the councillors for your reports digging into Google and looking for where you got it from”, Hristina Hadzhiatanasova pointed out.
The floor was also taken by another of the petitioners – Ivan Ivanov. He urged the GERB municipal councilors not to become hostages of a single person, referring to Georgi Manev:
“Do not become hostage to the ambitions and decisions of a man who during the committees would threaten that if you accept our report, he will not accept your proposals her budget. Even then he dared to speak on behalf of the whole group.
Yes, Mr Kanchev, you are right, there will be a national survey, but they are happening over a very long period of time. What we are proposing is the purchase of 10 devices to measure radon levels indoors in the municipality.
The purpose of these instruments is to give us an actual indication of whether there is radon in a given room. In this way we will take measures by opening the windows more often. In this way we will have regular monitoring. This is called a two-step model. Yes, radon is a natural gas, but it is radioactive. Well, they and earthquakes have been around for decades, but so what – we don’t take measures? You did not mention, Mr Kanchev, during the committees, that you have already purchased such devices. How come you suddenly say that you have purchased them.”
“It is no coincidence that Manev moved the report just before the vote on your budget proposals. We are asking questions as to what exactly changed and when these devices were ordered. Our proposal is from two weeks ago and we were not told then that they had already been ordered”, Ivan Ivanov added.
The mayor Dimitar Nikolov also took the floor several times during the heated debate and pointed out:
“My recommendation to you is, when you prepare and submit such reports that concern the work of the municipal administration, seek contact with us so that we can help you to make our report more meaningful and more valuable. Why did the municipality order these machines a month ago? I was very hesitant to give permission to purchase them.
I was pressed on both sides by different forces. On the one hand, the Ministry of Health says that these apparatus were not purchased by the proper order and for us these data are not legitimate. As well as the devices with which we measure noise in Burgas. If someone complains that there is a disco and we measure an exceedance of the standards, there is nothing we can do, despite the data from these devices. However, we have done very serious market research and have chosen a Norwegian company. They themselves were concerned why we wanted such large quantities of apparatus. This is the first time this has happened since we have been in existence. To use such apparatus, you cannot hire five workers and solder. We are in a panic to do something that is not logical. We buy something that is not legitimate.
We’ve been warning for years – open the daycares 5 times more than they’re supposed to.
Burgas Municipality does not love children any more than Burgas Municipality loved them 10 and 20 years ago. But now we are doing many times more than has been done so far in the history of the existence of kindergartens in the city of Burgas. Scientists say the following regarding the uranium content in drinking water and air, there are permissible standards – 0.003. If there is an excess RZI and the Ministry of Health goes and bans. While for radon there is no such norm. It is recommended there, it is obfuscated. If it is more, you cannot ban the use of the kindergarten.
If you go now to the Mineral Baths and drink a glass of water, there is more radon there. It’s not that startling if we don’t psych ourselves up to be startled. A physicist who deals with the subject of radon and was in my office hinted to me that if I bought some apparatus from him, the radon problem would be solved. If you squeeze us any tighter, we will spend even more money. We will buy even more apparatus so that all Bulgarian physicists will come to their senses and things will get better.”
“I want to make one clarification and listening well and trying to understand Mr Nikolov’s statement, we never intended to create panic. We aim to create security for every single person because through these devices every single person online can monitor what the radon level is and what better than that – what better security. That is how we will reduce tension in society. How can these machines be ordered 2 months ago and 15 days ago we are not told that these machines have been ordered. Please let us know too. Not to have this information dropped on us today at the session and realistically it looks like we are looking under the calf only to not purchase these appliances. Through these instruments every single person can do monitoring”, Stoyan Tsarev was adamant.
“If you want, we will buy another 5-10 – 15. We agree because otherwise it comes out that we are against our children. There is no way to do something that is against the children”, Nikolov stressed out.
And Ivan Ivanov said:
“This proposal makes it CEC And that is why this debate. Such meters are used in many European cities – Munich, Vienna, Prague?! Are they populists. When we say that it is not the responsibility of the municipality – it is the responsibility of the municipality to protect the health of citizens in public buildings.”
In the end, the report was rejected. It was supported by 8 councillors, 11 abstained and 22 were against.
