Global Courant 2023-05-25 18:27:03
The rising waters initially came as a relief, both to the small community living on the islands in the southern Kakhovka Reservoir and to anyone who feared the low levels risked a meltdown at the nearby Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.
Since mid-February, the water level in the reservoir has been steadily rising, according to data from Theia, a French geospatial analytical organization. An analysis of satellite imagery by the Associated Press showed that the water has now risen so high that it is washing downstream over the damaged Russian-occupied dam.
The waves first covered the natural coastline and then submerged the marsh grasses. Then they came to Lyudmila Kulachok’s garden, and then to Ihor Medyunov’s guest room. The wild boars fled to higher ground, replaced by waterfowl. Medyunov’s four dogs have an ever-shrinking patch of grass to roam, and Kulachok serves meals on a picnic table that sloshes through the darkness in waders.
Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro River, which runs from the northern border with Belarus to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply. The last dam, located furthest downstream in the Kherson region, is controlled by Russian troops.
Flooded houses on an island in the Kakhovka Reservoir on the Dnipro Rier (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo)
All of Ukraine’s snowmelt and runoff from rainy spring days ends up here, in the Kakhovka reservoir, said David Helms, a retired meteorologist who monitored reservoir levels during the war. Russian forces detonated the sluice gates of the Nova Kakhovka dam last November during the Ukrainian counter-offensive, though they ultimately retained control of that stretch of the Kherson region.
Now, whether intentionally or through neglect, the gates remain closed.
River dams work like systems. The idea is to manage the power to provide steady water levels that will protect both ships on the water and buildings on land, Helms said. This is done mechanically with a combination of locks, turbines and lock gates – and constant communication between the operators of the individual dams.
Because the locks are closed, the water meanders over the top of the dam, but not nearly as fast as the water flows down the Dnipro. So there is little relief in sight for the handful of people left on the islands. The small community consisted mainly of second homes, but became more permanent with the outbreak of war, as people sought safety in its isolation.
Their contact with the outside world is now limited to a few food deliveries a week by Ukrainian police boats, as the reservoir is off limits to unofficial watercraft to protect against sabotage of the basin that supplies about 40 percent of Ukraine’s drinking water. .
They listen for the sound of artillery and rocket fire. They make dark jokes about needing a mask and snorkel to take cover in the basement.
‘Here were onion, garlic, vegetables. There were peaches, apricots. Everything is dead,’ said Kulachok, standing knee-deep in water in her vegetable garden. “At first I cried. But now I understand that my tears don’t help.”
Lyudmila Kulachok, 54, left, with her family in the flooded courtyard of their home (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo)
Fish is about the only thing currently abundant on the island. She caught two as they were swimming in the kitchen preparing the traditional borscht soup with chicken pieces delivered by police earlier this week.
“This is a war. Many people lose things in their lives. And then I thank God that all my loved ones are still alive,” she said. She said her son is a soldier in the eastern city of Bakhmut, the epicenter of the fight against Russia. “He didn’t see this and I don’t know how to show him. He will say, ‘God, how many years have we worked to achieve this?’”
In early February, water levels were so low that many in Ukraine and beyond feared a meltdown at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the reservoir. The spring rains came early and hard, and then combined with the melting of the snow.
“The Russians are just not actively managing and balancing the flow of water,” Helms said. He compared it to a bucket with a small hole that is now filled with a fire hose. In the end, the water splashes over it “almost as if the emergency circuit breaker has been hit”.
Satellite images from May 15 showed water washing over the damaged lock gates, just as Helms described.
All this is invisible, yet obvious to Ihor Medyunov, whose yard is now a small patch of swampy grass. Even the neighbors who came to the island to escape the war have decided that the prospect of missiles is preferable to endless flooding.
Helms said water levels are likely to drop slowly during the dry summer season. But that seems a distant future for Medyunov, whose work as a hunting guide ended with the war.
“Now we have nowhere to go,” he said. “We will wait for a better time to rebuild, repair. It’s really painful.”
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