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The Moldovan government announced a 15-day environmental alert regime in the Dniester River basin due to a wave of petroleum products moving downstream after a Russian strike on the Dniester Hydroelectric Power Plant in Ukraine.
This was reported by Moldovan President Maia Sandu and Moldovan Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu.
“As a result of a Russian strike on Ukraine’s Novodnistrovsk Hydroelectric Power Plant, oil entered the Dniester River, which threatens Moldova’s water supply. We have declared an environmental alert and are taking measures to protect our population. Russia bears full responsibility,” Sandu wrote on social media.
This regime will allow:
- mobilize additional resources (in particular, state reserves and those not under the direct management of the state);
- introduce restrictions on water intake and use in those sectors where analyses show exceedances of permissible limits, in order to prevent contamination of water supply systems;
- involve additional structures for response and integrate international teams from the EU.
As the Prime Minister of Moldova explained, the pollution wave continues to move downstream, and in the Naslavcha–Soroca zone there are exceedances of permissible limits for petroleum products and aromatic hydrocarbons in the water.
“Even if at some points the indicators temporarily return to permissible limits, the substance continues to arrive in waves, which makes it difficult to accurately predict how the situation will develop,” Munteanu emphasized.
In particular, the Moldovan government has planned for the near term the installation of additional dams to prevent petroleum products from passing through, and an inventory of water intake wells. President of Moldova Maia Sandu announced an environmental alert due to an oil spill in the Dniester. She wrote about this on her X account.
As a reminder, on March 12 the press service of the Moldovan government reported oil coming from Ukraine via the Dniester. The Apa-Canal Balti enterprise decided to temporarily stop water intake for Balti—the second-largest Moldovan city—however, by Wednesday evening it resumed it.
Earlier, an expert suggested that Kyiv might have deliberately polluted the Dniester.
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