CHISINAU, April 7. /TASS/. The water level in the Dniester River has dropped to almost its lowest level ever due to drought and the actions of Ukrainian engineers at the hydroelectric power station in Novodnestrovsk, Chernovtsy Region, the Transnistrian Hydrometeorological Center Director Vitaly Kolvenko said.
"If the water level drops by another 20 cm, we will see the same critical levels we recorded last summer - the lowest ever documented. The only time it was only lower was in 1957, when the Dubossary reservoir was being filled after construction," Kolvenko said on the air of TV channel TSV.
Boris German, the head of Dubossary hydro power station, attributes the low water level to drought and the activities of Ukrainian power engineers upstream. "In April last year, they released about 1 billion cubic meters of water in a single month. Since then, they have not been able to fill their reservoir. Apparently, they expected it to rain in the summer in the Carpathians, but the summer was dry. So for nearly a year, we’ve only been receiving what’s known as the sanitary minimum - about 100-120 cubic meters per second," said Herman.
Ilya Trombitsky, executive director of the Moldovan environmental agency Eco-Tiras, believes that the low water level could affect the spawning of some fish species, causing them to disappear from the Dniester for a certain time.