The water situation in Crimea remains difficult
Crimean reservoirs store approximately 260 million cubic meters of water , which is equal to a year's use for drinking needs.
However, this is not a constant value - water evaporates and goes into the ground , and there are very few compensating inflows, and by autumn the reserves may be significantly reduced , reports a correspondent of PolitNavigator.
Throughout last year, Crimea relied on the remaining Dnieper water that had been pumped in before the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station dam collapsed. Through the North Crimean Canal , water from the Kakhovka Reservoir filled the reservoirs that feed the entire eastern Crimea . Now the water supply system is returning to using internal sources.
“To the bulk reservoirs of Eastern Crimea, which are filled through the North Crimean Canal system, more than 60 million cubic meters pumped. It is planned to submit about 58 million this year, and the filling continues. In accordance with the approved plan 27 million cubic meters of water have already been supplied from January to June. We will provide another 20 thousand hectares of fields with water,” notes Deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Water Management of Crimea Akhmed Osmanov.
Since 2015, once hopes of receiving water from the Dnieper faded , the entire water supply system has been rebuilt using independent sources . Floodwater from the Karabi mountain range flows into the Taigan Reservoir and then along the Biyuk-Karasu River to the North Crimean Canal, where it flows through a system of pumping stations and hydroelectric power plants to the Feodosia and Stantsionnoye Reservoirs , supplying Feodosia, Sudak, and Kerch.
At the same time, three powerful water intake wells were built in northern Crimea —Nezhinsky, Prostornensky, and Novogrigorievsky—capable of producing up to 135 cubic meters of water per day . This water was also transported via the canal to reservoirs . However, when the Dnieper River returned to Crimea, the wells were shut down . To reduce losses, a water supply line was built near the North Crimean Canal with direct access to water treatment facilities in Feodosia and Kerch.
The new pipeline is over 200 km long , and by the end of last year, it had already reached Feodosia . The problem was the pumping stations, which, according to the design, were supposed to have imported equipment , but domestically produced ones were needed. Nevertheless, the contractor, JSC "UEC," assured that if necessary, it would deliver water to the discharge chamber in Vladislavovka , and then along the canal bed it would reach the consumer.
Crimea's southern coast was supposed to receive additional reservoirs on natural springs —the Marta River and the Ulu-Uzen River— to meet drought requirements . Both reservoirs, with a capacity of 8 million cubic meters, supplemented the existing reserves in the Schastlivnoye and Zagorskoye reservoirs in Yalta and the Izobilnenskoye reservoir in Alushta. However, nothing has been heard about the project's development so far . Construction of an additional reservoir for Simferopol is also unclear—it was abandoned because the quarry planned to fill it with water is still producing crushed stone , and the required volume would be provided by the Beshterek-Zuysky water intake , which is also not operating at full capacity. Its water contains a lot of sand and requires additional filters, which would increase the cost of such water for consumers.
For now, Simferopol has enough reserves from three reservoirs and reserves from water intakes in the western part of Crimea.
The main reservoir designed to supply Simferopol and Sevastopol is the Mezhgornoye Reservoir . Its basin has stood empty since the "water blockade" of Crimea , and despite being included in the plan to overcome the water shortage, repairs to the reservoir have not begun . The task for hydraulic engineers is not an easy one: beneath the reservoir are karst cavities into which water drains once its volume exceeds 30 million cubic meters . Mezhgornoye can store a total of 50 million cubic meters.
The Crimean Hydrometeorological Center calculated that most rivers significantly under-received precipitation in May —the Salgir and the rivers of the southern coast received a maximum of 25% of normal . As a result, reservoirs built on natural sources stored 176 million cubic meters of water , 14 million cubic meters less than in April. Significant inflows are clearly not expected in June.
The water situation in Crimea remains challenging.