Volunteers clean up Ukraine's rivers as part of 'Living Water' campaign (03/23/97)

Volunteers clean up Ukraine's rivers as part of 'Living Water' campaign

by Roman Kokodyniak

BORSCHIVKA, Ukraine - First the priest led the congregation in prayer at the banks of the Horyn River. Then the work began.

Over 300 village residents, joined by collective farm managers and the owners of small enterprises, worked for two days last fall in a community effort to clean up the long-neglected Horyn River. Local organizers Tamara Korsun and Larysa Fytsun said the event far exceeded their expectations as just a month earlier they had decided to take action close to home.

The Borschivka villagers planted willow trees and picked up debris along the stream's shoreline. The Horyn, which forms the headwaters of the Prypiat River, was the lifeblood of this community, providing clean water for irrigation and fish for food. But, over the last 50 years, the stream was neglected as a dam blocked its flow and pollution degraded its water. The clean-up effort launched in September 1996 was the first step toward its restoration.

"I have lived and worked in this village all my life, know practically everyone, and never have I seen so much concern for our little river,"expressed 70-year-old resident Lida Bik as she gazed at much younger neighbors raking debris.

Similar efforts focused on small streams took place all across Ukraine last fall, as over 8,000 citizens in approximately 75 communities and regions volunteered their time as part of a national "Living Water" campaign. The work - which involved testing water quality, cleaning trash, planting trees and public education efforts - was organized by the environmental group National EcoCenter of Ukraine, with assistance from the Institute for Sustainable Communities, a Vermont-based organization working throughout Central and Eastern Europe on environmental, democracy building and sustainable development initiatives. Funding was provided by the United States Agency for International Development and the U.S Environmental Protection Agency.

The Living Water campaign was the first national voluntary environmental citizen action campaign in the history of independent Ukraine, organizers said. The campaign was preceded by nationally televised public service announcements developed by the Ukrainian "ECO" TV program that called attention to the plight of the nation's rivers and streams. Academic experts, government leaders and NGO representatives also participated in a nationally broadcast roundtable discussion that focused on watershed conservation and protection efforts.

Yurii Kostenko, Ukraine's minister of environmental protection and nuclear safety, appeared in the televised public service announcements and spoke about the importance of protecting the water quality in small streams. "Everyone lives downstream of these vital resources," he said.

"It's a national problem. Without resolving the problems affecting our streams, we can not begin to address the other problems in the environment. It begins with the small streams," Minister Kostenko said. "If we can't solve the pollution of water, we can't solve the pollution of the food sources and products we eat."

Water pollution is a persistent and pervasive problem in Ukraine, a country whose national identity and history is closely tied with the beloved Dnipro River, the third largest waterway in Europe. Some 20 billion cubic meters of untreated effluent are dumped into the Dnipro each year, one-third of the stream's annual flow of 52 billion cubic meters. Nearly 3 billion cubic meters of this effluent is toxic, according to a 1994 Canadian study.

Ukraine's Dnipro River Basin Commission found that for the six years ending in 1993 many pollutants flowing into the Dnipro and its tributaries have exceeded allowable limits. For example, levels of organo-chloride pesticides were two to 72 times the "maximum admissible concentration," nitrates were 76 times higher, while concentrations of heavy metals ranged from five to 134 times the allowed maximum.

While treating sewage effluent and curbing chemical pollution takes substantial capital investment, there is much that individual citizens can do to improve water quality, particularly in small streams, according to organizers of the Living Water campaign.

"The campaign last fall struck a receptive chord with the public, even during these difficult economic times. People responded with tremendous energy with volunteer efforts to cleanup the nation's waters," said Vasyl Kostiushin, the executive director of the EcoCenter. "People in general do want to do something - to feel involved. Success begins with one citizen and one village deciding to make a difference," he said.

"They will make an effort. There's some pessimism; there's always some pessimism. But for every small stream - and there are 10,000 - you can find people who are enthusiasts, who want to be part of the campaign. We have a ways to go before we find a group of enthusiasts for every small stream who will adopt a stream to improve its health."

Efforts launched during the Living Water campaign ranged from secondary school students testing water quality for contamination to elderly citizens and local government officials planting trees to stabilize river banks. Here are some examples:

Nearly 3,000 residents of the Kaniv district in Cherkasy Oblast, including local deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, mobilized a vast river bank clean-up and tree-planting project. Over 2,500 trees were planted along the Stuhna River.
Two hundred school children and their parents in the village of Holovyne in Chernivtsi Oblast conducted water tests of local streams, planted trees and picked up garbage along river banks.
Around the country, nearly 500 local springs and water sources were restored to "healthy" status.
Volunteers removed and secured many "illegal" dump sites along numerous streams in the Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kharkiv oblasts.
Along the Samara River, over 200 residents worked to restore nearly 20 hectares of very fragile forest land that serves as a major wild edibles foraging area.
About 100 residents living near the Teteriv River worked to restore nearly 2.5 kilometers of river bank by creating a forest-belt corridor that they "adopted" as a community conservation area.
Enforcement personnel from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Nuclear Safety from Khmelnytskyi, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Kryviy Rih, Rivne, Donetsk, Kirovohrad, Cherkasy and other regions joined local NGO leaders in community forums to educate local citizens, students, business leaders and workers about the impact of local industrial pollution on their water resources, particularly small streams.

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