It will take 2-3 years to restore the Seim and Desna rivers

Approximately 5 600 tons of polluted water entered the Seim River from a sugar factory in the Kursk region. Now it takes 2-3 years to restore the ecosystems of the Seim and Desna rivers.

This was stated during the conference the day before by the director of UkrHMI SES and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Volodymyr Osadchiy and the director of the Institute of Hydrobiology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Serhii Afanasyev.

The amount of contaminated water that entered the Sejm was estimated using satellite images. This mass in a few hours destroyed all the dissolved oxygen in the river, which led, in particular, to a plague of fish.

Talking about the consequences of the pollution of the Seim and the Desna, Afanasyev recalled the ecological disaster on the Dniester in 1983, when all living things died along 500 kilometers of the river due to the breach of the earthen dam of the Stebnytskyi tailings storage facility. He added that unregulated rivers could take several years to recover.

At the same time, according to the Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Olena Kramarenko, the quality of water in Seim is improving, the content of dissolved oxygen has reached the norm — 4 milligrams per cubic decimeter, fish plague is not recorded. And in Desna, pollution has slowed down, is fixed at points and has a heterogeneous character. According to her, 15 boats and more than 140 specialists are now involved in the collection of dead fish in the Chernihiv region.

According to Ihor Zubovych, the acting head of the State Inspectorate, local authorities and concerned citizens have already collected 31 tons of dead fish — 12 tons of 150 kilograms in Sumy Oblast and 19 tons in the Chernihiv region. Specialists continue to carry out intensified crisis monitoring of the state of water and have already taken 195 samples in Chernihiv, Sumy and Kyiv regions. According to the results of measurements of priority pollutants in the Seim and Desna rivers, no excess of pesticides, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, or heavy metals was detected.

So far, the pollution has passed through Desna for 242 kilometers. According to the updated data of the forecast of the Ukrhydrometeorological center, polluted water may reach Kyiv region, approximately, on September 14-16. At present, the tap water in the capital meets all standards, said the chief sanitary doctor of Kyiv, the head of the Kyiv City Center for Disease Control and Prevention Serhii Chumak.

"Kyivvodokanal" has created a working group on responding to situations that may pose a threat to water quality. Specialists will anticipate possible challenges, work through all scenarios and prepare for them. In case of deterioration of water quality indicators in Desna, enhanced purification technology will be implemented using pulverized activated carbon, which effectively removes organic pollution and unpleasant odors," said CEO of Kyivvodokanal Oleh Lysyuk.

• Pollution of Desna has been reported since the end of August. Fish are dying en masse in the river, and the water has turned black. The pollution started from the Seim River, which is a left tributary of the Desna and flows through, in particular, the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, where hostilities are ongoing. Damage to the environment in Chernihiv and Sumy regions due to pollution of the Seim and Desna rivers exceeds 405 million hryvnias.