09/06/2024

Fourth Episode of the Series “Look Around You” – Zaječar’s Artesian Fountains

Zaječar is a city with more than 30 active public artesian fountains, making it unique in Europe and the world for its wealth of healthy drinking water, which the majority of residents use daily. Many fountains are over a century old and represent significant cultural heritage as well as the greatest natural asset of Zaječar.

Artesian fountains were built at the beginning of the last century by benefactors, i.e., wealthier citizens of Zaječar. However, over the decades of use, the water flow at many fountains began to decrease due to the lack of maintenance of well structures. They began to dry up in early 2015 due to an illegally constructed artesian well of a private hotel in the city center.

This prompted citizens to gather and demand protection for the artesian fountains. Under public pressure, the illegal well was closed, the hotel owner was criminally convicted, and shortly thereafter, the process of legalization, reconstruction, and revitalization of the artesian fountains in Zaječar began.

Since 2018, the extensive and complex task has been jointly undertaken by the City of Zaječar, the Association “Za Drinking Fountains”, and the company “Heineken Serbia,” which operates in the city and uses water from one of the wells for its products. Through established partnerships, seven fountains have been restored and four artesian wells have been reconstructed…

Zaječar is a rare example of how a city’s water resources can be preserved and continuously improved for future generations. Today, amidst climate change, such natural resources represent immeasurable wealth that must be used in accordance with the principles of sustainable development, as scientists’ projections about the availability of drinking water, even in the near future, are, to say the least, alarming.

You can watch the fourth episode of the series “Look Around You” below.

This documentary episode was produced within the project “Environmental response to mining expansion in Timočka Krajina” funded by the European Union, and implemented by the Association “Za Drinking Fountains”, the Association of Young Researchers Bor, Civic Library “Europe” Bor and Children’s Center Zaječar. The content of the documentary episode is entirely responsibility of these associations and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Source: EU u Srbiji