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If the situation does not improve, Simferopol will be divided into two conditional parts, one will receive water in even numbers and the other in odd numbers.
The problem of water supply to Russia’s annexed Crimea, compounded by the prolonged drought, is pushing local authorities controlled by the Kremlin to non-standard solutions.
The media reports that local authorities have started a massive liquidation of underground wells, and Crimeans on social media complain about non-compliance with approved water supply schedules and deterioration of its quality. Correspondent.net says the details.
“Back in the Middle Ages”
Ukraine provided up to 85 percent of Crimea’s freshwater needs through the Northern Crimean Canal, which connects the main Dnieper canal with the peninsula. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the water supply to the peninsula was cut off.
Water reserves in Crimea are replenished from natural runoff reservoirs and underground sources. According to environmentalists, the regular use of water from underground sources has caused the salinization of the soil in the peninsula. Crimean authorities regularly urge residents of the peninsula to save water.
Due to abnormal heat and lack of rainfall this summer, water shortages affected several regions of Crimea. The main efforts of the Russian authorities were devoted to providing water to Simferopol, taking it away from the residents of the Belogorsk region. However, the city was transferred to the schedule anyway.
On August 24, restrictions were introduced to the water supply regime in the Simferopol, Simferopol and Bakhchisarai regions. Water tanks began to be installed in the courtyards of apartment buildings and in the private sector.
They will be filled with water on time by tanker trucks. It is recommended to boil the supply water.
In addition, the Crimean Kremlin government made recommendations to save: do not spend more than four liters a day on hygiene needs.
Recommendations for Crimeans on the use of water
After the Crimeans were limited in the supply of water, its quality was drastically reduced. Many of the faucets have cloudy liquid with a pungent odor.
The head of the Crimean Water company Vladimir Bazhenov acknowledged the problem and explained that now the filters at the treatment facilities in Simferopol are washed only once a day.
This consumes five thousand cubic meters of water, which is discharged into the sewer. The remaining water reserves often do not allow the filters to be washed.
Russian Crimean chief Sergei Aksenov previously said that he did not exclude the possibility that Russia would recognize an emergency situation with the water supply to Crimea. Aksyonov claimed that 2020 was the driest year in 150 years of observation.
According to Vladimir Bazhenov, director of the Crimean Water company, the drought on the peninsula “exceeded all expectations.” Russian authorities on the peninsula were confident that the reservoirs would hold enough water until autumn, he said.
During a visit to Crimea on August 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the issue of water supply to the peninsula “still needs to be resolved.”
On September 2, the Russian-controlled government of Crimea announced that it was preparing for a “worst-case scenario” by supplying water to the annexed peninsula.
On September 7, the third and most severe stage of water supply restrictions was introduced: three hours in the morning and three hours at night, and it warned of possible deviations. At the same time, the head of the Simferopol administration, Elena Protsenko, told how she herself saves water.
“I have a very strict water economy: I am late, I take a shower. I wake up at 5:30 in the morning, I take a shower again and I disappear. I also spend my weekends at work. My husband has roughly the same hours We don’t cook anything, so we wash the dishes. It’s not necessary, “he said in an interview with Sputnik in Crimea.
If the situation does not improve, Simferopol will be divided into two conditional parts, one will receive water in even numbers and the other in odd numbers. According to the forecasts of local authorities, the inhabitants of Crimea will live in this mode at least until winter.
Simferopol reservoir in late August. It’s only 20 percent full / TASS
While the Russian military is laying water pipes in some regions of the peninsula, irreversible processes are taking place in others, Krym.Realii writes. Local authorities began a massive liquidation of underground wells, from which water had been extracted in previous years.
“They are doing a complete fill, that is, irreversible. This means that there will no longer be prospects and opportunities to use these wells in the future, even for the extraction of groundwater, which could be there,” said the deputy director of the Ukrainian Institute of Water problems and land reclamation, former first deputy chief of the State Water Resources Agency Mikhail Yatsyuk.
From 2014 to the present, to supply water to the peninsula, the Kremlin authorities have even reopened wells that were closed during the Soviet years and continue to drill new sources of moisture. This leads to a massive mineralization of underground sources.
Drilling new wells instead of abandoned ones could create new problems in Crimea, Yatsyuk said.
“The use of groundwater in Crimea was a mistake. It could not be used at all, because there are no resources in it … An irreversible process is taking place: water resources are depleted and polluted. This will have irreversible environmental consequences … This will result in the Crimean population having to seek other places of residence, “he said.
Crimea September 8. Reality reported that a unit of Russian pipeline troops under the Belogorsk reservoir blocked the Biyuk-Karasu river with an earth dam. From the resulting pond, the military began to pump water for Simferopol’s needs.
Special vehicles equipped with pumps pump water into installed pipes. The Biyuk-Karasu river below the earthen dam, filled by the military, ran out of water.
Is Ukraine responsible?
Last week, Natalya Poklonskaya, a former Crimean prosecutor and now a member of the Russian State Duma, announced her collaboration with the UN to restore the water supply to Crimea.
The UN responded that there was no talk of any cooperation. They simply asked for more information about the water problem in Crimea and recalled that the state of Crimea remains unchanged – it is part of Ukraine.
On September 7, the Russian media, citing RIA Novosti, circulated a statement from the official representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Elizabeth Trossell, which allegedly refers to the responsibility of Ukraine, and not only from the Russian Federation, on the issue of water in the peninsula.
“In accordance with international human rights law, Ukraine is obliged to support the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights and to constantly examine the question of whether it can take measures to ensure an adequate standard of living for all people in its territory”. – Throssell quoted.
Ukraine’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Djeppar called this information “distorted”.
“I would not be surprised if in the next publication some other Russian media are already shouting that ‘the UN ordered Ukraine to supply water to occupied Crimea’ to meet the needs of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and its facilities,” wrote Geppar on his Facebook page.
He stressed that the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on the issue of water supply to residents of the annexed Crimean peninsula remains unchanged.
“Russia is an occupying country. Russia bears full responsibility for the situation in Crimea,” the diplomat wrote.
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