The UAC welcomes the adoption of the order "On Prevention of Emergencies at the storage pond located in the Kryvyi Rih district of Dnipropetrovsk region" by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, which allows the discharge of mine water from the Svystunov beam into the Inhulets River with subsequent washing of the riverbed.

In December 2020, the UAC called on to solve a problem about the critical situation that threatened to disrupt the irrigation season as soon as possible. Adoption of this order is an extremely necessary and urgent measure, the adoption of which farmers have been waiting since October 2020. After all, the critical violation of terms of mine waters discharging made it impossible to wash and rehabilitate the bed of the Inhulets River, from which the fields are watered. This in turn made the water unsuitable for irrigation and threatened to disrupt the entire 2021 irrigation season. We are talking about 36 thousand hectares of irrigated land and one and about 150 agricultural enterprises of Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, which use the Inhulets irrigation system

It is also extremely important that for the first time the Cabinet has a clearly established indicator of the maximum permissible concentration of chlorides in water at the level of 350 mg per cubic meter during the growing period. Until now, only the schedule of water discharge was determined. For farmers, however, it is important to comply with the first indicator, because the excess concentration of chlorides leads to soils’ salinization and yields’ reducing this year.

However, according to data from previous years, the level of chloride ions in the waters of the Ingulets River, since September, has risen too fast. In particular, in September 2020 it was 815.42 mg/dm3, in October - 1772.65 mg/dm3. In 2019, these indicators were 1630.84 mg/dm3 and 1843.56 mg/dm3, respectively. The reason for this problem is the lack of water for the riverbed washing, due to which the level of chlorides increases. To ensure the concentration of chlorides at 350 mg/dm3, it is necessary to give into the river at least 8-10 m3 of water per second. All it takes is to provide enough content in the storage to have enough water until the end of the growing period, which can continue until the end of October due to climate change.

The UAC emphasizes that (given the critical situation around the Inhulets irrigation system, which is repeated every year) it is necessary to develop and implement a long-term, strategic problem solution. Therefore, the UAC supports the implementation of the Paragraph 4 of the relevant order on the development of the Kryvbas mine water management plan and calls on the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine to involve farmers as representatives to the relevant work.