A "Lighthouse Project" to clean-up the worst polluted waterway in Europe
 The Danube-Tisza-Danube Canal, or the Grand Backa Canal, was built in the 18 century, partly for transport and water supply, but also with the purpose of draining the wet and fertile soils of the Backa district of Vojvodina.The canal did the job and paved the way for development of large scale agriculture and the entire area between Crvenka and Vrbas was heavily industrialized in the 20th century, with small towns springing up along its banks.
A victim of its own success, however, the canal today has become a "death dumpsite", as the locals call it, because of the well-grounded speculations about its impact on human health in the area around the towns of Crvenka, Kula, Vrbas and Srbobran. Heavily polluted by unprocessed industrial and communal wastewaters, the canal today is a lifeless stream of poisons, including heavy metals, which only serves to transport pollutants into Tisza and Danube rivers. The scale of the problem is best illustrated by the fact that scientists have traced Nitrogen and Phosphorus from the Backa canal as far as the Black Sea, which illustrates its cross-border dimension and impact upon the larger Danube catchment area.
The canal is no longer able to "deal" with the amount of waste produced by sugar beet processing factories, pig farms, slaughterhouses, edible-oil factories, metal processing factories, and other polluters such as smaller industrial facilities and untreated sewage from the towns on its banks. In its worst stretch around the town of Vrbas the canal is practically filled with industrial sludge, with the depth of only 30cm of water easing over it. It has been a direct health hazard for an estimated 100.000 people living in its vicinity, some of which also have to cope with the stench of the canal that makes living in its proximity particularly difficult in warm weather.
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Serbia