Since the end of August, timetables for water supply have been introduced in Simferopol and Bakhchysarai. Authorities restricted water supply in three steps. Currently, private flats and houses in Simferopol receive water for six hours per day (three hours in the morning, and three in the evening). Initially, it was assumed that this would be the strictest possible measure, but officials now state that if levels at water reservoirs do not improve, Simferopol will receive water every other day.
Meanwhile, the authorities have acknowledged the problem of water quality in some districts of Simferopol, and claim it is related to water washing up metal corrosion from the pipes. Indeed, Tatyana and Arseny Mikhalchuk have had to switch off the water filters installed in their flat – a company engineer told them that the filtration system would break in a few days at this level of contamination.
For cooking and washing her two young children, Tatyana has to buy water at special terminals and bring it home in plastic bottles with her car. This water costs three-four roubles (£0.03-0.04) per litre, and her family uses 40 litres per day.
Tatyana says that in theory one can collect water for free: across different districts of Simferopol, special plastic barrels with drinking water have been installed. However, this service is far from perfect: sometimes you have to drive around the city to find water; barrels everywhere are empty.
Before Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, 85% of its water was supplied via a canal that runs from the Ukrainian region of Kherson, directly to the north. Approximately 80% of water was used for agricultural needs, the remaining 20% was channelled to water reservoirs and used to supply the population. In 2014, Ukraine blocked the canal by building a dam, stopping water supplies to the peninsula.
Representatives of the Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly stated that they would not restart the water supply to annexed Crimea. This summer, head of the Ukrainian government Denys Shmyhal said that “restarting water supplies via the North Crimean canal is not on the agenda, and is not the subject of any kind of negotiations.”
How to save Simferopol
Currently, Crimea is home to more than ten natural drainage water reservoirs, with an additional one in Sevastopol – and these reservoirs are the only source of water supplies in the region.
Experts have been calling attention to warning signs of drought since 2018. For example, at a session of Russia’s Federation Council, representatives of Crimean state water company reported that the regular seven-year water cycle was coming to an end and that water levels in local reservoirs would be substantially lower in the near future.
In spring this year, meteorologists noted that an acute shortage of precipitation had been observed in Crimea’s mountains. In comparison to the previous year, their level was lower by 91-96%, while there was no precipitation at all in some mountain river basins.
When the volume of water that flows into Simferopol’s reservoirs started approaching a critically low level, Crimean authorities took measures to sustain the water balance in the capital. For example, they deployed a Russian military pipeline unit to build a 50-kilometre water pipe to connect Simferopol to the Taygan water reservoir, located in nearby Belogorsk.
However, according to locals, this project was marred by accidents. Pipes were built in a rush, and occasionally burst. ‘For hours, all the inhabitants of Belogorsk could observe water fountains stretching 10 metres in the air coming from the pipes,” local businessman Oleg Zubkov says.
Sergey Aksenov | Source: Facebook / Sergey AksenovIn June 2020, Crimean leader Sergey Aksenov stated that the only cloud-seeding plane in Russia would be sent to the peninsula. This plane, when it discovers thunder clouds, can shoot them with silver iodide, causing rain. After Aksenov’s announcement, the state tender portal published a tender for “experimental works”. Crimea’s Central Aerology Observatory, a federal budget organisation, won the 25.5 million rouble (£252,000) contract from the local budget. openDemocracy was unable to establish whether the organisation has begun work, and when the contract is supposed to be completed.
Civic activist Oleg Kocherov claims that the current drought has shown how negligent the local authorities are. According to him, Simferopol’s water network has degraded to 60-70% of its original function. Therefore, most of the drinking water that is pumped out of the reservoirs does not reach consumers, instead disappearing into the soil.
“If the authorities had undertaken extensive repair works of the water supply network over the last six years, it would have been possible to avoid the harsh restrictions now,” Kocherov adds.
Dried-up wells and rivers
The current drought has not only affected Crimea’s urban population. Countryside dwellers in settlements that still lack centralised water supply have also experienced water deficit due to a sharp drop in river levels and underground water sources.
An inhabitant of Golubinka village, Varvara Vasilyeva, complains that “there is no harvest this year. There is no harvest because we stopped watering in summer. There was no water.”
Golubinka is situated on Crimea’s Belbek plain, to the south-west of Bakhchysarai. Many settlements in this area do not have centralised water supply. Moreover, it is impossible to drill water wells at many plots due to the landscape. As a result, many villagers have to use water from communal wells.
Vasilyeva says that it became obvious during the summer that the water pressure in her well was getting weaker and weaker – until one day there was no water in the hose.
She adds: “Well pumps cannot run without water. We turned the pump on a few times, but there was no water, the level was too low. So we decided not to risk it and simply left our plot without water.”
Moreover, this autumn residents of Bakhchysarai district had to struggle to protect a local river that flows through the plain: the authorities in Sevastopol were planning to build a water supply system over the Kokkozka river. This new installation was supposed to collect fresh water and channel it to the Chernorechensk water reservoir, which is the only reservoir supplying the city with half a million inhabitants.
The protest of the local people was heard, and the project was cancelled. The level of water in the river remains extremely low.
Print
David Axelrod | Radio Free (2020-10-22T12:57:53+00:00) Inside Crimea’s slow-burn water crisis. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/10/22/inside-crimeas-slow-burn-water-crisis/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.