13:28, 11.06.2023

The destruction of the Kakhovskaya HPP dam, arranged by the Russian military, led to a global environmental disaster. And now no one will undertake to predict whether it will ever be possible to restore the destroyed ecological balance. UNIAN found out what is happening in the south of the country due to the detonation of the dam and how it will affect people’s health.

The undermining of the Kakhovskaya HPP dam by the Russian occupiers on the night of June 6 led to a global environmental disaster, the devastating consequences of which are still unknown. Unique protected lands, along with many animals and birds, including red-listed species, have been destroyed, perhaps forever. A toxic flow entered the Black Sea – exploding mines, thousands of tons of chemicals and soil, sewage waste, dead animals, uprooted trees, toxic sludge deposits containing dust…

The water level in the Kakhovsky Reservoir continues to decrease, and the property of the victims from the Kherson region – from pieces of furniture to huge parts of houses – is washed up on the Black Sea coast in the Odesa region and Odesa . On June 11, the State Environmental Inspection of the South-Western District also recorded significant changes in the chemical composition of seawater samples on the Odesa coast…

Irreparable consequences for national parks

The Kakhov reservoir is a giant reservoir with a volume of over 18 cubic meters. km and 240 km long. According to the public organization “Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group”, when it was built in the middle of the last century, with the help of hydraulic structures, the water level in the Dnieper was raised by as much as 16 meters. Therefore, according to experts’ calculations, the consequences of a terrorist attack for wildlife are predicted on an area of ​​at least 5 thousand square meters. km (flooding and drainage zones).

“More than 1,000 square meters of the territory, which has been covered by the waters of the reservoir for the last almost 70 years, will be open to the sky,” – claim the representatives of the group.

According to the executive director of the public organization Rewilding Ukraine, Mykhailo Nesterenko, the consequences for nature, particularly wildlife, are terrible. It is about the destruction of an entire biogeocenosis – a unique landscape complex with all living organisms – plants, animals…

In particular, as a result of the explosion of the hydroelectric power station, the National Nature Park “Nizhnyodniprovskyi” was affected, which is more than 80,000 hectares of floodplain in Beryslavskyi, Bilozerskyi, Holoprystanskyi and Oleshkivskyi districts, the cities of Kherson and Nova Kakhovka, most of which are currently flooded. The terrorist attack also affected several national parks – “Biloberezhja Svyatoslav”, “Oleshkivski pisky”, “Kinburnska Spit”.

In addition, dozens of protected tracts, sanctuaries and natural monuments – botanical, landscape, zoological, ornithological and forest – came under attack.

According to Nesterenko, due to the man-made disaster, which led to the undermining of the dam, the level of the river water rose ten times higher than it could have been during any natural flood.

“Unique meadows, rivers, islands are not just flooded – they are washed away together with animals, birds, soil – everything that has been created for tens of years. At the same time, let me remind you: all the natural parks of Kherson region and Mykolaiv region are currently occupied, and we cannot fully know the extent of this nightmare,” said the biologist.

Ecologists emphasize that the total area of ​​flooded protected areas, including the Black Sea Biosphere Reserve (protected by law since 1927 and part of the UNESCO global network of biosphere reserves), may exceed 120,000 hectares.

“The scale of the destruction will increase rapidly, because the fast current on the fairway under the high right bank of the Dnieper will wash away a number of nature-protected areas located along the shore. This means abrasion (destruction by waves, – UNIAN) of high banks in the first days after the beginning of flooding and continued erosion in the future “, – explained in the “Ukrainian Environmental Protection Group”.

According to Nesterenko, many valuable representatives of the flora will die (and have already died). These are hundreds of rare flowers, in particular, populations of wild orchids. Also part of the birch and oak forests, including one of the largest giant oaks of the Kherson region, which are located in the Zburyiv Forestry, near the banks of the Dnieper.

In addition, flooding will cause a significant rise in the groundwater level in the entire southern region of Ukraine. This means an increase in moisture in the soil and the so-called salt, harmful to vegetation. Over time, this will lead, for example, to the final disappearance of relict remnants of natural forests and artificial forests on the Dnieper sands.

As Nesterenko notes, deer, wild boars, roe deer, badgers, weasels lived in the flooded areas… Red-billed birds nested, oyster settlements were located, and many things that may never be revived.

“If there is a sharp release of fresh water into the sea, the fish in it will move away. As a result, seabirds – seagulls, cormorants, terns – will remain without a food base,” explains the executive director of Rewilding Ukraine.

According to Vladyslav Balynskyi, the head of the public organization “Green Letter”, the “Kakhov disaster” has a global scale .

“Hundreds of islets, areas of floodplain forest and steppe, flooded meadows and slopes with all their inhabitants are washed into the sea. Now is the mating season – the period of nesting and spawning. That is, hundreds of species of living organisms have died and continue to die, of which 71 species of animals and 32 plants are included to the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Red Book of Ukraine, etc.,” says the ecologist.

Danger for the Black Sea 

The destruction of the dam of the Kakhovskaya HPP poses a great danger to the Black Sea , because river water from flooded areas with a large amount of fuel and lubricants, hundreds of thousands of tons of soil, thousands of dead animals and birds, uprooted trees is carried there. Plus – waste from destroyed sewage systems and cesspools, residues of fertilizers and other chemicals, not to mention mines and other munitions that detonate directly in the water. Also, “big water” washes away cemeteries and cattle burial grounds. This rumbling mixture will likely affect all marine life, from plankton to cetaceans.

There is one more nuance – the bottom sediments of the Kakhovsky Reservoir. They contain pollutants that have been accumulating for decades due to emissions from industrial enterprises in Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kamian and other settlements.

As Balynskyi explained, the problem of such silts, the height of which can exceed ten meters, is typical for all reservoirs. It was studied before, but scientists did not know what to do with this “good”.

“Once upon a time, they wanted to use sapropel (silt formed from plant and animal remains that had rotted at the bottom of stagnant water bodies, UNIAN) as fertilizers. But after studying their composition, they abandoned this idea. As it turned out, the sediments at the bottom of such water bodies contain a lot of poisonous chemicals, primarily salts, heavy metals, plus organochlorine compounds and even DDT, a dust that was actively used in Soviet times, for example, for disinfection,” said the ecologist. 

Kakhovska HPP and nearby flooded villages were shown from aboveKakhovska HPP and nearby flooded villages were shown from above

He emphasizes that dust is deadly – accumulating in the bodies of people and animals, it stimulates a decrease in immunity, severe pathologies, including intrauterine ones. 

According to Balynskyi, the question of cleaning water bodies was raised from time to time, but it was never resolved – experts did not know how and where to dispose of large volumes of this sludge. Therefore, sapropel contamination of the water area of ​​estuaries and the northwestern shelf of the Black Sea cannot be avoided.

“I cannot say that this will become the number one problem – it depends, among other things, on how and at what height the dam of the reservoir was damaged. But I do not rule out that raging currents wash these toxic growths into the sea in the form of suspensions. And even remaining in in one way or another on land, after the decline of fresh water, these growths will dry up and appear in the form of toxic dust”, – believes the head of “Green Letter”.

An additional source of environmental poisoning can be the floodplain river system itself, which, like the liver in the human body, absorbs and accumulates hundreds of thousands of different substances (the same National Park “Nizhnyodniprovskyi” is one of the most valuable natural floodplain complexes in Europe). Floating areas are used for wastewater treatment: water passing through the floating areas is quickly cleaned of excess minerals and microorganisms. Now, one might say, this huge “organ” is torn out with blood and, together with all the toxins, falls into the sea.

Not only Ukraine will feel the consequences of the tragedy

And without these new dire consequences, the Black Sea is very vulnerable. It contains a significant hydrogen sulfide dead layer and “own” bottom sediments, which include, in particular, herbicides, pesticides, and nitrates. 

“All this ‘wealth’ once fell to the bottom with the runoff from three rivers – Dniester, Danube and Dnieper. So now this anthropogenic load on the sea is increasing hundreds and hundreds of times”, Balinsky explained. 

As the expert notes, a large volume of polluted waters in combination with a hot summer will provoke the massive development of microorganisms and algae in the sea. That is, a terrorist attack can lead to the blooming of the sea with all the negative consequences. After all, in past years, in hot weather, there were already such phenomena in Odessa, the main cause of which is climate change. So, green-blue foam appeared on the coast, and the water became like slurry. These are cyanobacteria that emit a lot of toxic substances. Often they also cause mass death of marine inhabitants. 

“We have also seen how the sea turns red, the reason is that other algae that are very dangerous for humans “grow”. we will encounter in the near future. Moreover, they will affect not only shallow water, but also the open sea. And it is here, in the northwestern part of the water area, that there is a food base for many species of fish and birds,” says the ecologist.

According to Balynskyi, other countries of the Black Sea region will feel the consequences of the poisoning of the sea together with Ukraine, since the current along the coast runs counter-clockwise. In other words, the flow that is now going to Odessa will, in one form or another, reach Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and later – to the aggressor state itself. After all, water does not have stone fences and fundamental barriers made of steel. It is not worth hoping that the “highway” pollution can dissolve in salt water. The Internet showed what the Kakhov reservoir looks like after the destruction of the dam

As the expert notes, the coastal current is quite strong, as residents of the Odesa region have already confirmed. The shocking consequences of the terrorist attack in the Kherson region are already being observed here – parts of furniture, houses, mines and animal corpses floating in the sea.

The Institute of Marine Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine claims that they will monitor changes in the salinity of the Black Sea. Scientists confirm that the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP will have significant consequences for the entire marine ecosystem.

We should also expect a worsening of the sanitary-epidemiological situation. It is known that a number of diseases spread during floods due to contamination of wells and aquifers. We are talking about dangerous intestinal infections, such as cholera and botulism.

The criminal must be punished

About four dozen public organizations, representatives of the environmental protection movement of Ukraine, published a joint statement with an appeal to fellow environmentalists, international experts, institutions whose purpose is to protect the environment, secretariats of international environmental conventions, authorized bodies and persons of the United Nations Organization within the scope of their powers and opportunities to react to the act of ecocide on the part of the Russian Federation, committed by undermining the Kakhovskaya HPP. It states that by their criminal actions, the Russian occupiers violated the Geneva Conventions, the Convention on Wetlands, the Convention on the Protection of Wild Flora and Fauna and Natural Habitats in Europe, etc. 

“Such barbaric actions of the Russian Federation violate the basic principles and ideas that the civilized world has developed for decades and enshrined in a number of international agreements… Such actions of the enemy once again demonstrate to the world community the absolute leveling of the Russian Federation of international norms, standards and rules,” reads the statement released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment – Law – Man”.

In addition, the actions of the Russian military fall under the criminal legal classification of a war crime in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as well as under the features of the crime of “Ecocide” provided for by the Criminal Code of Ukraine. 

“This crime is another serious incentive for Ukraine’s partners to speed up the establishment of a tribunal for the Russian Federation and Belarus, as well as to supplement the Rome Statute with such a crime as ecocide,” ecologists note. 

… More accurate forecasts of the consequences of this disaster are still impossible to make. You need to wait for the water to recede, which will take at least a week. However, a number of countries will see the environmental and economic consequences of a strike on the Black Sea for decades, if not longer. Therefore, it is necessary to take all possible measures now in order to record the violations, bring the culprits to justice and make it impossible to commit such barbarism in the future. 

(C)UNIAN 2023