A nuclear power plant in Ukraine could endanger its residents due to the country’s ongoing war with Russia.
According to NPR, the water levels of the Kakhovka Reservoir in southern Ukraine have remained far below normal, thanks to the Russian-controlled hydroelectric power plant at the lower end of the reservoir.
The sluice gates at the plant have been left open since November, plunging the water levels to the lowest they have been in decades.
“The reservoir is critical to southern Ukraine. It supplies water for villages and towns in the region and irrigates around half-a-million acres of farmland that’s used to grow grains and vegetables. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant also relies on it for cooling water,” the nonprofit media outlet reported.
The Ukrainian government has made an effort to stop the flow by refilling Kakhovka with water from other Ukrainian-controlled reservoirs along the Dnipro River, but this is at best a band-aid solution.
“The attacks on electricity systems have been very explicitly covered, because they’ve been relentless,” said Peter Gleick, a senior fellow at the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. “But there have also been intentional attacks on water treatment systems and wastewater service systems, and that has cut off safe water for literally millions of Ukrainians.”
According to Gleick’s report published last month, the conflict has affected water across the Ukraine: pumping stations have been blown up, shutting villages off from fresh water, dams have been destroyed, and flooding has affected surrounding homes. Wastewater facilities have lost electricity, contaminating their treatment pools.
Mykolaiv, a city in the south, experienced water shortages last year after fighting severed a crucial pipeline. The water system had to be connected to a brackish source, which has caused further issues while providing people with access to water for bathing and washing clothing.
“Because of this salty water, the water supply system was damaged by corrosion,” said Oleksandra Shumilova, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, Germany.
The United Nations said earlier this year that the war had destroyed Ukraine’s water system. In 2022, an estimated 16 million Ukrainians reportedly needed assistance with access to water, sanitation, and hygiene.
