The Water Agency, or the Soline company as the manager of the Sečovlje Salt Pans Nature Park, last summer appealed to the owners of the vessels in the Jernej Channel to remove them. As the vessels have not been removed yet, the Ministry of Environment is preparing material for further actions. It is not yet known who will remove the eight crafts belonging to the unknown owners. As the Court of Audit established three months ago in the post-audit report, the management of the Jernej Channel remains unsatisfactory.

The Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning explains that all the crafts have been removed from the banks; the situation concerning crafts still in water is different, even regarding submerged or partly afloat ones. The Ministry has no legal grounds for their removal. The Environment and Nature Inspection Service is responsible only for supervision of waste management, while only the owner discarding a vessel can characterize it as waste.

The inspector was only able to initiate the inspection procedure for the damaged crafts deemed abandoned. In eight out of 15 cases they were not able to establish the owners of the crafts which can be considered refuse, and according to the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning the Soline company was ordered to remove those crafts. When asked how many of those crafts have been removed until now, the manager of the company Klavdij Godnič gave a very short answer: none.

The question regarding removal of the unlawfully constructed wooden piers, mooring buoys and serviceable crafts requested by the Court of Audit is still open. The competent Ministry insists that the conditions within the Jernej Channel will be efficiently regulated only with adequate changes of the Maritime Code.

The circumstances will change only with the construction of a fishing port in Seča which is planned by the Municipality of Piran; execution of the plans is hindered by a depot for temporary silt storage in the Nature Park, for which the Municipality still has to obtain a number of approvals. The Ministry also emphasizes that the depot will be feasible only if silt can be used for water-construction works.