Balti, Moldova — Tens of thousands of Moldovans have been left without water after a Russian strike on a hydroelectric plant in neighboring Ukraine left oil polluting a major river that runs through both countries.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu has blamed Russia for the pollution of the Dniester River following an attack on Ukraine’s Novodnistrovsk hydropower plant on March 7, saying it was “threatening Moldova’s water supply” in the European Union candidate country.
The Ukrainian plant is located about 15 kilometers (9 miles) upstream from Moldova’s northern border with Ukraine and supplies water to about 80% of Moldova’s population of about 2.5 million. Moscow has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, such as dams and river ports, since it fully invaded the country in 2022.
“Russia bears full responsibility,” Sandu said in a post on X on Sunday.
Moldova’s environment ministry declared a state of environmental alert for 15 days on Sunday, giving authorities a legal mechanism to step up technical interventions and impose temporary restrictions on water supplies.
“We are taking this decision to prevent any risk to public health,” it said. “Because of the continuous wave of pollution with oil products, the risk of spreading pollution and exceeding the level of pollution in the northern region of the Dniester River.”
Although oil contaminants have been confirmed in the river since the strike, the exact source of the contamination is still unclear.
The situation has forced authorities to cut water supplies to several districts, including Balti, Moldova’s second-largest city with a population of around 90,000. Along with humanitarian aid from neighboring Romania, Moldova’s military this week stepped in to distribute drinking water in the northern city from a 10-tonne tanker.
“It’s very difficult, very difficult,” said Lyuba Istrati, an 84-year-old Balti resident who was carrying buckets of water to her apartment. “We live on the fifth floor, it’s just the two of us, old people, my husband is sick in bed.”
Water shortages have forced some schools to close and move learning online.
“It’s a complicated situation, I have to come every day to get water,” said Irina Mutluk, a teacher who lives in Balti. “Even for a person you need a lot of water for consumption, bathroom and so on, it’s really complicated.”
Officials are now scrambling to clean up the pollution and analyze and monitor the river water. Neighboring Romania, which has close ties with Moldova, has sent teams and equipment such as absorbents to the dams to help with cleanup efforts.
“Recent samples taken show improvement in water indicators, which confirms the effectiveness of filters and barriers to capture and dispose of pollutants,” the Environment Ministry said on Wednesday.
The ministry added that authorities are “working at a fast pace” to resume water supply, “but this decision will be taken separately based on at least two consecutive analyzes taken on two different days… Protecting citizens’ health is an absolute priority.”
Moldova’s Environment Minister Gheorghe Hajdar told a press conference on Wednesday that three critical monitoring stations on the river had “reached acceptable limits” of oil pollution for the first time since the crisis began.
If the analyzes show the same results or improve in the next 48 hours, authorities will consider reopening a pumping station on Ukraine’s northeastern border that supplies several districts and Balti, he said.
“This is clear evidence that upstream oil diversions have been greatly reduced and that the absorption dams have had their effect,” he said.
The Dniester River originates in southwestern Ukraine and stretches over 1,300 kilometers (846 miles), continuing downstream through Moldova, through southern Ukraine, and emptying into the Black Sea.
“At some point the values may temporarily come back within acceptable limits, as the matter continues to come in waves, making it difficult to predict the evolution accurately,” the environment ministry said.
Moldova’s General Prosecutor’s Office said on Tuesday it would open a criminal case to investigate the matter, while Moldova’s Foreign Ministry said Russia’s ambassador to Chisinau, Oleg Ozerov, was given a brown water bottle.
In an online statement on Wednesday, the Russian embassy in Moldova argued that Moldovan authorities had not presented any evidence of Russian complicity, saying that “except for a container containing an unknown murky liquid, there are no marks as to where and when it was obtained” and that “by definition is proof of nothing.”
The statement puts forward “conflicting theories” as Moldovan authorities “publicly claim to lack accurate information about the nature of the incident, type and amount of pollutants”.
Ilya Trombitsky, a biologist at Eco-Tiras, an umbrella organization of non-governmental organizations in Moldova and Ukraine, says that while the short-term or long-term effects of pollution are still difficult to determine, “many cities without water is a clear social harm.”
“It depends on the nature of the pollutant … we still don’t know the source or substance of the pollutant,” he told The Associated Press. “Obviously it’s not healthy for the birds, the wetland birds. Some of the invertebrates are killed, especially upstream … crustaceans, but the smaller ones, (which) can be food for the fish.”
“Moldova has no experience in such leaks,” he said.
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McGrath reports from Leamington Spa, England.
(tags to translate)Animals
