Why does tap water stop running? Sometimes this happens because the rivers stop flowing. To prevent this, the European Union created a water framework directive aimed at returning rivers to their natural state. Since water knows no borders and flows from one country to another, [in 2008 – Ed.] the EU decided to share the best practices with six neighboring countries in the project “Water Governance in Western Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.”
The Ros River, clear and pure in the past, became a decaying broth several years back. Water reservoirs stopped the river’s current, so that the Ros lost its ability of self-purification. Algae proliferated, sucking oxygen out of the water and turning it into a dead pool. This situation started posing a threat to human health.
The Ros is an average Ukrainian river. It has its source in the Vinnytsia oblast, passes the Kyiv region, and falls into the Dnipro upstream of Cherkasy. In summer, when a lot of water evaporates, the river loses its current. “In hot periods one could stand it,” says the head of the basin administration of Ros River Petro Babii, “if cities didn’t continue withdrawing water from the river and draining waste waters back into the Ros.”
According to Babii, it was impossible to carry out post-treatment measures, water plants blocked filters, and the water quality failed to meet any standards. When more chlorine was added, toxic compounds similar to dioxin formed — these toxins are accumulated during a person’s entire life. This case was no isolated incident. And when villages and towns below Bila Tserkva were left without water at all for three weeks, they rang the alarm bell.
To solve the problem they also looked at the European experience. The project “Water Governance in Western Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia” offered assistance in the realization of an integral approach. It was realized in 2008-10, and its budget constituted 2.2 million euros, and 0.8 million euros for equipment. Its aim was not to manage parts of the river, which is divided between several oblasts, but the whole basin. Now Babii works in a specially created basin department and observes from Bila Tserkva the river from source to mouth.
This integral approach was suggested for use in the five other countries participating in the project. According to Steve Warren, head of the team of European experts, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are united by the former Soviet past. Although in the 20 years of independence the countries changed their legislations and drifted away in legal matters, they still share major waterways.
For example, Ukraine and Moldova share waters of the Dniester River. And even if one of the countries purifies the river and gradually returns it to its natural state, a neighboring country may continue draining waste waters, and consumers from both sides will suffer. Thus, the project offers the countries to change together. In addition, these tasks coincide with objectives of the European water framework directive: aspiring not to quantitative standards, but returning to the natural state of the river in terms of quality.
Another aspect of the European system is involving the community to governing water resources. Besides the basin administration department, the project helps establish basin councils. One of the project’s experts Andrii Demydenko explains that the new approach encourages uniting people. “The basin council,” he says, “represents all interested parties: executive authorities, who govern the river, businessmen and directors of plants which use its water, and ecological organizations. The problems of the rivers must be solved by those who live near them, not by sanitary-hygienic centers, the Ministry of Environment, or officials in Brussels. The most important thing here is the integration of people and the search for a consensus between interested parties,” Demydenko asserts.
Basin councils are already created for most big rivers in Ukraine, but the realization of the integrated approach is still only half done. Petro Babii believes that the basin council must make political and economic decisions, but so far it is only of a deliberative character. He would also like to change the system of financing rivers: “Water consumers and polluters pay taxes which go to the capital, that is to Kyiv, and little money returns to the region,” explains Petro. “In Europe the price for water is set locally, costs stay with basin departments and are used at the discretion of basin councils. We hope that we will do it as well, but I don’t know when. Ukraine needs a law that would define the financial mechanisms involved,” supposes Babii, “and we must also use the principle ‘those who pollute more — pay more.’”
The project “Water Governance in Western Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia” helps examine this complex notion of an “integrated approach.” The Ukrainian party is considering the advice and using the experience of its western neighbors on how to work with the community and how to find balanced solutions, though Babii admits that not everyone is willing to cooperate, and negotiations are difficult at times. Regarding specific results, the head of the basin department is glad that there were no extraordinary situations in the basin of the Ros River for three years in a row. Babii hopes that the situation will improve in the future as well, and the river will not lose its ability to purify itself on its own, as the use of chlorine would kill it.
Generally speaking, the project “Water Governance in Western Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia” aims at reducing pollution, and supporting the logical and efficient distribution of water resources from transnational rivers. The project also seeks to introduce and enforce water legislation, as well as contribute to a convergence with EU standards. The western partner countries, namely Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the South Caucasus, share water bodies and river basins, which makes transnational water management a crucial issue.
