According to the State Statistics Committee, polluted discharges in surface bodies of water increased by one-third in 1998, with sewage registering an almost 2.4 time increment in the fresh water supply networks, compared to a mere 2% water purification equipment growth. As a result, the ratio of inadequate sewage purification rose 2.2 times. Surface water pollution chemical monitoring showed that the Crimean mountain rivers retained satisfactory status, while the other rivers of Ukraine ranged between the polluted and highly polluted categories. The Danube, Dnister, Southern Buh, Siversky Donets, and Dnipro showed the highest rate of nitrogen compounds, petrochemical products, phenols, and heavy metals.
These are 1998 statistics. There are reasons, however, to assume that the figures have not changed in the past two years, allowing even for Kyiv’s Public Health Chief’s recent statement that fresh water supplied the capital is chemically and epidemically safe. “The assumption that chloroform content in the city’s fresh water supply networks averages 20 mcg per liter compared to 60 micrograms per liter [the established standard] looks quite truthful,” Hanna Tsvietkova, coordinator of the Drinking Water in Ukraine Co. of the MAMA’86 volunteer ecological organization, told The Day , commenting on Iryna Kozlova’s statement, adding that “It is easy to come to such conclusions in winter, because fresh water is chlorinated in the spring-summer period. Thus, one ought to mention chlorine content in drinking water throughout the year in between seasons.”
