Gospic PFAS Testing: New Sample Results Still Pending
Results from the August 11 extraordinary PFAS sampling in Gospic remain unreleased. The Institute cites March and April data, while Rab moves to monthly testing over its ties to Lika's water sources.
The Croatian Institute of Public Health released a detailed statement on August 12 about drinking water quality controls in Gospic, but the statement left out the one thing the public has been waiting for: results from the extraordinary sampling carried out the day before. Instead, the Institute pointed back to older samples, from March and April, while the measurements taken on August 11 are still being processed. The case is being watched beyond Croatia’s borders too, since it raises a question that comes up across the region whenever an illegal dump is uncovered: when, and by which parameters, was the water tested that flows from the same catchment into people’s taps.
The statement was prompted by media reports claiming that water in the Gospic area had gone five months without PFAS testing, the synthetic compounds known as forever chemicals because they break down so slowly in nature. The Institute rejected those claims and listed out what had been sampled, and when.
What the March and April tests showed
Water from the Mrdjenovac supply zone, which serves Gospic, was tested on April 28 as part of the national monitoring program, at a site in Bilaj. Before that, on March 23, the water utility Licke Vode had sampled water directly at the Mrdjenovac source and from consumers at the MRO center. Both tests came back with the same result.
In all 20 PFAS compounds analyzed, including their sum, the values were below the quantification limit of 0.0015 micrograms per liter.
That is how the Institute’s statement puts it. The quantification limit is the threshold below which a laboratory cannot reliably measure a concentration, so the finding means PFAS compounds were not detected in those samples.
Over the course of 2026, Lika-Senj County has seen a total of 14 PFAS tests, spanning national monitoring, source checks and the utility’s own measurements. One positive reading turned up, at Tonkovica vrilo, where the level measured 0.0052 micrograms per liter, about twenty times below the maximum allowed value. The Institute stresses that the compounds found in the monitoring wells around the illegal dump are not the same ones detected at Tonkovica vrilo.
The extraordinary sampling took place on August 11, at the Mrdjenovac source and among consumers in Gospic, prompted by heightened public concern. Those results have not been released yet, though the Institute says they will be shared once ready. Until then, the only figures on the table are the ones from March and April.
What the expert found on Bilajska Street
The concern did not appear out of nowhere. USKOK, Croatia’s office for suppressing corruption and organized crime, obtained access to an environmental protection expert assessment and its supplement, covering the industrial complex on Bilajska Street in Gospic, produced on its order by the Faculty of Geotechnical Engineering in Zagreb. On the surveyed part of the site, the assessment estimated roughly 37,000 tons of mixed waste, ranging from electrical and electronic equipment residue to parts of medical waste. Representative samples showed hazardous ecotoxic properties, and elevated concentrations of copper, lead and antimony were measured in the soil.
The part that matters most for the water story is the analysis of groundwater from three monitoring wells. PFAS compounds turned up in both wells downstream of the groundwater flow, but not in the upstream reference well. The highest total concentration reached 200.5 nanograms per liter, twice the parametric value of 100 nanograms set for total PFAS in water intended for human consumption. The experts add that the groundwater right next to the dump site is not part of the public water supply, and that no exposure of the population through drinking water has been established.
Why is Rab requesting monthly testing?
Because the island drinks water piped in from the mainland. Rab is supplied from the Hrmotine source, which draws on the Lika and Gacka rivers, so any news out of the Lika catchment immediately becomes local news on the island. Primorje-Gorski Kotar County prefect Ivica Lukanovic consulted with Zeljko Linsak, director of the county’s Institute of Public Health, and requested tighter water quality oversight.
The two agreed that the extra monitoring would specifically test for metals and PFAS compounds. Such tests used to run twice a year; from now on they will run once a month, with results published on the Institute’s website. Linsak also reported that official testing so far has shown no impact from the Gospic contamination case on the water in Rab’s public supply system.
The next official date is already on the calendar: for the Mrdjenovac zone, the 2026 national monitoring plan calls for two PFAS samples, the first taken in April, the second scheduled for September. Before that, the results from August 11 are still due, and they will show whether the spring picture has changed.
