Tiraspol, 14 December./Novosti Pridnestrovya»./ Ukraine is planning to build over 200 water-storage hydroelectric installations on the Prut and the Dniester (a network of reservoirs with dam-based power units where a part of the Dniester's flow will be accumulated). In this case, individual sectors of these rivers will get dammed, and their waterways will be growing shallow downstream of the dams.
When the hydroelectric installations are over, the Dniester may turn into a narrow non-perennial river, which will lead to an ecological disaster. The river's shallowing will affect its biosystems, cause a water deficit and damage irrigated cropping on both banks, predicts Tatyana Sharapanovskaya, director of the state nature reserve Yagorlyk.
"When the construction of a water storage power plant of the Dniester hydrosystem (part of the Novodnestrovskaya hydroelectric plant) is over, it may happen that water will be supplied twice a day," Tatyana Sharapanovskaya told a Novosti Pridnestrovya reporter. "The Dniester will not dry up but we will face a shortage of water," clarified the expert.
According to the nature reserve director, Ukraine's water-storage installations may block a huge amount of water, which coupled with a climatic factor (periodic droughts in the recent years) may lead to the Dniester's shallowing. Water shortage may affect the river’s water exchange with underground water. Water inlets and well points cannot draw a sufficient quantity of water.
Besides, soiling will reduce the Dniester's ability to self-purify, and the water will become muddier. According to the Academy of Science of Moldova, the Dniester's natural purification capacity has already decreased by 80% over the past three years.
The Dniester's shallowing will affect the overflow land, which will result in a sharp decline in the number of birds, animals and fish, Tatyana Sharapanovskaya is confident.
The loss of water will jeopardise the work of irrigation system and seriously hit at the agricultural complex.
It is recalled that Moldovan scientists began to speak about the threat of ecological disaster on 9 December. They declared that if the project for the construction of Ukraine's six hydroelectric power stations was implemented, Moldova would "turn into a desert and its population would end up without drinking water."
"There is almost no current upstream of Kamenka, and fish do not splash there in the morning. Soroca city's untreated sewage is discharged into the Dniester and stored in the Dubossary reservoir. If there is no ingress of water from the river's upper sectors, it will turn into a pool," says Yelena Zubkova, head of the hydrobiology and ecotocsicology lab of the Zoology Institute of Moldova's Academy of Science.
It should be noted that Ukraine's construction of hydraulic installations goes counter to the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (1991). Another document is the EU Water Framework Directive, which obliges the countries which share a transboundary waterway to conclude agreements for developing plans and regulating this waterway.
In 1995, the Eco-Tiras international association lobbied the signature of the corresponding Dniester agreement between Moldova and Ukraine, but Ukraine took no interest in this agreement.
The OSCE and the UN Economic Commission for Europe exerted pressure on Ukraine and only in 2012 the Agreement Between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the Republic of Moldova on sustainable management of the Dniester's basin was signed.
Moldova ratified this agreement in January 2013, whereas Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada has not considered the ratification of the document up to now. Today Ukraine is still evading the discussion of this issue, referring to the country's difficult situation, which by the way has not prevented it from launching the third power unit of the Novodnestrovskaya hydroelectric plant.
