Ukraine has stopped supplying water to Crimea through the North Crimean water channel, deputy Prime Minister for Regional Policy Volodymyr Groysman told the Kyiv Post on April 25. Until Russia and Ukraine sign an agreement regulating water supplies to Crimea, Groysman said, water supplies from mainland Ukraine will be cut off.
Crimea
relies on the rest of Ukraine for 80-85 percent of the water that it consumes.
“It
used to be an integral system, but because of the occupation of Crimea, there
is now a question – who will pay for the water?” Groysman said.
There
are 124 water operating companies in Crimea that lack legally binding
agreements with Ukraine’s State Water Resources Agency. Groysman noted that all
of these companies have received letters with invitations to sign agreements,
but have not responded so far.
Interestingly,
the State Water Resources Agency denies the stoppage of water supplies to
Crimea through the North Crimean channel. It only admits that since April 28
the speed of water flow has slowed – it decreased to 11.1 cubic meters per
second from 13 cubic meters per second on April 23.
The
agency emphasizes that Crimea still receives water, though there are no legal
grounds for that. Since April 28, Crimea started taking away 35 percent
more water, according to the agency.
The
peninsula’s debt for the water has reached $140,000.
Crimea
would essentially be an arid desert without the water it gets from the Dnipro
River via the 400-kilometer Northern Crimean Canal that connects the peninsula
with the Kakhov Reservoir to the north. The peninsula’s fruit and vegetable
growers, and winemakers, rely on mainland water for their livelihood. The
cities of Simferopol, Sevastopol, Kerch, Sudak, Feodosia, and others need it as
a life source.
Crimean
agriculture producers have already expressed their deep concern over the
situation with the water supplies. “There is not any water in the channel now,”
says Aleksandr Yevseev, chief agronomist for Crimea Fruit Company that belongs
to Yuriy Kosyuk’s Mironivsky Hliboproduct, Ukraine’s agriculture giant.
“We
planned to irrigate 1,500 hectares of land, where cherry, apples and peaches
grow, after May 8. And if the water will not appear, we will face some serious
problems,” Yevseev added.
Vadim
Novinsky’s Smart Holding also cultivates large volumes of agriculture in Crimea
– his Vesna agricultural firm cultivates apples and grapes on 530 hectares of
land in the central part of the peninsula. Vesna currently lacks water
supplies and is searching for alternative sources to diminish risks for their
crops this year, Smart Holding spokesperson Vyacheslav Rzheutskyi told the Kyiv
Post.
Energy
concerns
Crimea’s
electricity, about 82 percent of which comes from thermal power plants in
Zaporizhya and Kherson, is another factor.
Rinat
Akmetov’s DTEK, a major Ukrainian energy supplier, warned Crimea on April 25
that it will guarantee providing electricity for the peninsula only if Crimean
customers settle their debt to DTEK Krymenergo. That debt currently stands at
$63.23 million.
“We
ask all the consumers to pay bills fully, according to the contracts,” said
DTEK Krymenergo sales manager Dmitriy Gontar.
Aleksandr
Novak, Russia’s Energy Minister, said that the country needs to invest $3.6
billion into Crimea’s energy system to make it independent from Ukrainian
supplies. Crimean power stations can cover only 25 percent of peninsula’s
electricity needs, he added. Therefore, if Ukraine cuts the energy supplies,
Russia will have to build two or three power stations in Crimea, Novak
concluded.
Kyiv Post staff writer Vladyslav Golovin can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected]
