Raising the Cheboksary Reservoir Level — a Soviet project, recognized as ineffective in 1989, to fill the Cheboksary reservoir to an elevation of 68 m above sea level. Privatization made it possible to economically separate costs from revenues, allowing the hydroelectric station's turbines to be brought to their rated capacity at the state's expense while the profits go to a private company.
In the process, more than 83,000 hectares of land in Mari El will be flooded. That republic will lose its finest forest lands.
Filling the reservoir to its design elevation will raise the levels of the Volga and The Oka River in Nizhny Novgorod by more than 4 meters.
In the meantime, electricity generation in the Volga basin — barring yet another energy catastrophe — will increase by 0.25%.
Annual electricity consumption in Nizhny Novgorod Region will be covered by 5.5%.
The Essence of the Issue
When the Cheboksary reservoir is filled to the 68 m mark, nearly twice as much land will be flooded compared to the 63 m mark — 89,900 hectares in total, including:
- agricultural land — 29,100 ha;
- forests — 55,900 ha;
- arable land — 2,100 ha.
The flooding will affect 11 agricultural districts, Nizhny Novgorod, Dzerzhinsk, Bor, Lyskovo, and Kozmodemyansk.
The territories of the Fokino, Kurmysh, and other lowlands (floodplains) were not included in the total area of lands to be flooded. The planned dikes and pumping systems have proven in practice to be insufficient to protect the meadows at the 68 m mark, meaning the floodplains will progressively become waterlogged and inundated. The total area of flooded territories (including the residential areas of populated localities) will amount to 350,000 hectares. Vast densely populated and economically active territories will be inundated — first and foremost the metropolis of Nizhny Novgorod and the surrounding industrial centers, as well as the lands of Vorotynsky and Lyskovsky Districts. At the 68 m mark, the finest and most productive wildlife habitats will be destroyed. Annual timber losses will amount to 30,000 cubic meters; losses of forest produce — berries, mushrooms, and medicinal plants — will reach 25 tonnes.
Nizhny Novgorod Region will lose approximately 23,000 hectares of agricultural land — arable fields, hayfields, and pastures. In Borsky District alone, these losses will amount to some 2,500 ha. The renowned Bor meadows will be flooded. It should also be noted that filling the Cheboksary reservoir to its design elevation will significantly worsen the flooding of the low-lying areas of Nizhny Novgorod. Groundwater levels will rise, which will be especially damaging to the left-bank floodplain.
The rise in river levels and their fluctuation resulting from reservoir drawdown will cause bank erosion, as well as the flooding and inundation of significant territories in the Zarechka part of Nizhny Novgorod. Building basements, district heating ducts, and sewage networks will be flooded and damaged.
News
A news feed covering the fight to preserve the Volga can be found on the website vgoroden.ru.
On March 28, a working group under the Regional Legislative Assembly on the issue of completing the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station heard reports from the expert organizations that, on behalf of the federal government and the company contracted to develop the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station — RusHydro — are carrying out survey work. It transpired that as early as May of the current year they will submit all project data on the construction of the dam and its possible consequences for the regions, including Nizhny Novgorod Region, to the President. The President, within the following month — that is, presumably in the summer of the current year — will make a decision to begin the completion of the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station.
Representatives of RusHydro and the expert organizations presented their findings — preliminary, but already close to final. Even by their optimistic projections, on the basis of which the President is expected to authorize construction, a 5-meter rise in water levels in Nizhny Novgorod Region alone would result in:
- 8 populated localities flooded;
- 21 populated localities inundated;
- more than 2,000 structures and facilities flooded or inundated.
The ecologists and hydraulic engineering specialists present agreed that these figures are understated.
Representatives from various districts spoke. In Kstovo District, for instance, the rise in the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station's water level will quite obviously — and even the commissioned experts do not deny this — result in the flooding of both an oil pipeline and a water-pumping station; landslides will threaten villages situated on the right bank of the Volga (Zimyonki, Veliky Vrag, Barmino). In Vorotynsky District, something close to a Little Venice could take shape. And this is on the high bank.
What, then, will happen to the low left bank? The contractors say the shoreline will shift by 30 meters. That means 30 meters will be flooded, and waterlogging — i.e., boggy conditions — will extend 2.5 kilometers from the existing bank edge. To which the specialists reply that, given the existing network of lakes and swamps, waterlogging will penetrate 10 to 15 kilometers deep across the entire left bank.
All experts agree that the most serious danger comes not from direct flooding but from waterlogging and bank erosion — that is, from landslides, which will intensify along the right bank of the Volga. One must also not forget problems such as the flooding of livestock burial grounds and the inundation of the area around Dzerzhinsk, where vast quantities of chemical waste are buried. All these terrible chemical substances will be leached from the ground and will enter the The Oka River, and then the Volga. This will reach as far as Kazan, and then all the way to Astrakhan. We are talking about a disaster of nationwide scale.
Add to this the problem of drinking water, particularly in rural areas.
A meeting on how this will affect Nizhny Novgorod itself was scheduled for today, April 4, but has been postponed indefinitely. And in May, as noted above, the design work will be completed. The sole purpose of all these sacrifices is this: the energy companies must turn a profit from electricity generation. This decision will be made by the President, and Nizhny Novgorod Region will be obliged to meet all the conditions set by RusHydro — at its own expense.
Background
Many thousands of residents of Mari El — particularly from Kozmodemyansk and the Gornomariysky and Yurinsky districts — and of Nizhny Novgorod Region once gathered an enormous number of signatures and held meetings and rallies demanding that construction of the second phase of the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station be halted, that the water level not be raised to the 68 m mark, and that it instead be lowered by 3–4 meters.
In 1989, the State Expert Commission of the USSR Gosplan, the State Expert Review Department of the USSR Gosstroi, and the Chief State Expert Review Board of the USSR State Committee for Environmental Protection, in Resolution No. 7/76/79 of 26 April 1989, stated: "the normal pool level of the reservoir for the permanent operation of the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station must be set at 63 m."
Economic Benefit
The peak spring capacity of the Cheboksary station will increase by 600 MW, and average annual generation will increase by 1.24 billion kWh per year. The capacity utilization factor will be only 28%.
For comparison: the output of a single generating unit at a modern nuclear power plant with VVER (PWR) reactors exceeds 1 GW (1,000 MW), with average annual generation on the order of 8 billion kWh per year. The suburbs of major European, American, and Japanese cities often host several such power stations. Moreover, unlike hydroelectric stations, nuclear power plants have no seasonal drop in electricity generation.
According to a statement by Alexander Kosarikov, head of the Volga Federal District Investment and Environmental Agency, the construction of high dams on free-flowing rivers has been abandoned throughout the civilized world: "In Europe, such things are not done, and for one simple reason: the environmental consequences of such actions are difficult to predict, and so, accordingly, are the economic losses."
If the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station were brought to its design capacity, this would generate additional revenue of 100–130 billion rubles, but the costs would exceed 500 billion rubles.
Elimination of Jobs
Along with the flooded fields and forests in Mari El, the corresponding jobs will also disappear. However, as became clear during public hearings, no creation of new jobs is planned.
Destruction of Roads
The operation of the Bor pontoon bridge will be disrupted. The existing bridge ceases to function when water levels rise to marks well below 68 m. The rise in water levels will cause traffic jams stretching tens of kilometers during morning and evening rush hours. Bringing the bridge up to the new elevation will require costly reconstruction of the landing stages and a 1.5 km embankment, and will only be possible after the reservoir has been filled — a process that may take several years.
Studies have shown that the backwater effect of the reservoir in the Zarechka part of the city will extend several kilometers into the city's territory, all the way to the poorly defined watershed between the Oka and Volga rivers. This means that currently dry land, where conditions are now favorable, will become waterlogged; basements, utility crawl spaces, and underground engineering infrastructure that are currently damp will become fully flooded. To protect the Zarechka area, a network of drainage channels and canals would need to be created, along with a drainage system running along every street, road, and around every residential block, enterprise, and workshop. And all this in conditions where there is often no room within road cross-sections and where the roads would need to be torn up yet again.
Destruction of Beaches
All of the city's beaches will be flooded and will have to be created anew for a city of one and a half million people. But where? Will the water in the reservoir be safe for swimming, given the continued discharge of untreated sewage by a number of enterprises and the near-total loss of water flow? It is clear that mass bathing in the reservoir cannot be prevented even by the strictest of prohibitions.
Government Decision
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the acceptance of the proposal by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, agreed upon with the relevant ministries and the government of Chuvashia, to prepare amendments in 2010 to the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station construction project providing for the possibility of raising the Cheboksary reservoir level to 68 m.
The decision to prepare the proposal was made by the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, German Gref, during his visit to the Republic of Chuvashia on November 24, 2005.
Projected Consequences
Impact on Flora and Fauna
As the reservoir fills, vast areas of forest will disappear, including the so-called steppe-like pine forests that are widespread along the left bank of the Volga and along the Kerzhenets and Vetluga rivers. Ancient floodplain oak groves, willow thickets, and black poplar stands will also disappear.
The flooding and waterlogging of meadows, forests, and lakes will destroy many valuable plants — medicinal, food, fodder, and ornamental species, including rare and relict species listed in the Red Book (Sempervivum stoloniferum, water chestnut, floating fern, small naiad, narrow-leaved feather grass). The reservoir's influence will be felt in the surrounding forests situated in the lowland areas, tens of kilometers from the shoreline, where the groundwater table will rise, leading to the following adverse consequences:
- waterlogging of forest lands, primarily clearcuts, glades, hayfields, and similar areas;
- a significant portion of land with moist grass types will transition to grass-bog types, and blueberry stands will transition to tall-moss stands;
- forest plantations will perish from waterlogging, and hayfields will turn into lowland bogs;
- in low-lying areas, groundwater will rise to the surface and remain there throughout the growing season, creating additional waterlogging and forest dieback; in elevated areas, it will approach the root zone and create unfavorable growth conditions — trees will weaken and die.
The flooding of natural plant communities will destroy the habitats of many animal species. Zoologists indicate that this will lead to the death of the floodplain black grouse and the floodplain desman, both of which inhabit the Volga floodplain within our region. The desman is a species listed in the Red Books of Nizhny Novgorod Region and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
In Mari El, the planned flooding of 31,000 hectares of forest will result in the loss of productive forest land and timber reserves — half of the total forest area will be destroyed. The significant expansion of the Cheboksary Reservoir's water surface, in addition to waterlogging, will also cause considerable desertification of dry uplands, early signs of which are already observed in the sands of the Nizhny Novgorod Trans-Volga area and the Mari Lowland.
The concentration of enormous masses of water across a vast plain will generate strong winds characteristic of sea coasts. This will erode the deforested sandy shores, and large quantities of sand, carried dozens of kilometers, will bury any vegetation. Under such conditions, both natural and artificial reforestation will be extremely difficult.
The absence of forest cover will cause progressive wind erosion of light soils, and the process of landscape degradation will proceed like a chain reaction.
Fishery Resources
The flooding of a significant number of Volga floodplain areas and the weakening of the river's current will trigger a restructuring of the local fish fauna. While causing an initial surge in the populations of species such as pike, bream, and roach during the first three to four years, the extensive inundation of the floodplain will ultimately lead to a deterioration of natural fish stock reproduction due to the mass destruction of spawning substrate. Raising the water level to the design elevation will destroy the remaining natural spawning grounds and juvenile fish feeding areas.
The slowdown of the current will sharply worsen the reproduction and habitat conditions for the most valuable fish species in the reservoir — the sterlet, which currently still maintains a relatively high population in the upper river section of the reservoir and in the Oka River. This species may eventually disappear from the reservoir altogether, as has already happened in the Nizhny Novgorod Reservoir.
A reduction in water exchange within the reservoir will further deteriorate the already unfavorable hydrochemical and sanitary condition of the water body, particularly in sections adjacent to major industrial centers such as Nizhny Novgorod, Dzerzhinsk, Kstovo, Balakhna, and Pravdinsk. The direct impact on fish stocks alone will manifest in fish kills from poisoning and the occurrence of oxygen depletion events in winter. In the stagnant conditions into which the Cheboksary Reservoir will inevitably transform, an outbreak of ligulosis among cyprinid fish is certain to occur. Oxygen depletion events will intensify due to deteriorating water quality — both in winter and in summer, in areas of intense algal blooms in the reservoir. Small Rivers
The backwater effect will extend 83 km up the Oka, 90 km up the Sura River, and 123 km up the Vetluga River. Within the backwater zones, silting processes will intensify and river flow velocities will decrease. Above the backwater line, the riparian zones of many small rivers will become heavily overgrown with aquatic and semiaquatic vegetation.
On the one hand, the creation of the reservoir will contribute to a rise in groundwater levels and therefore to increased water content in small rivers. At the same time, however, the backwater effect will intensify bank erosion processes, destroy the mouth sections of rivers, and flood river floodplains.
Within the backwater zone, a river ceases to be a river and transforms, by every hydrological and hydrobiological measure, into a shallow bay of the reservoir. The fragile ecosystems of small rivers within the backwater zone are completely destroyed.
Impact on Water Quality
The Cheboksary Reservoir will be subject to more intensive anthropogenic pressure than the other Volga reservoirs. Its shores are home to many large cities and populated areas, including the largest of them — the Nizhny Novgorod industrial hub. Under river conditions, wastewater is carried away by the current, gradually diluted, and purified. Once the Cheboksary Reservoir is regulated to its design elevation, the water level will rise and the backwater effect will extend all the way to the dam of the Nizhny Novgorod Hydroelectric Station. This will be the only reservoir on the Volga that completely lacks a riverine section — the upper section typically found in reservoirs, where high flow-through and riverine hydrochemical and hydrobiological regimes are preserved.
Under these conditions, current velocities in the vicinity of the Nizhny Novgorod industrial hub may drop to 0.3 m/s or lower. Any windy weather may generate wind-driven countercurrents. As a result, wastewater discharged into the water body may find its way into the vicinity of drinking water intakes. Water quality will also be affected by intensified bank erosion and silting of the reservoir bed. Silty sediments accumulate far greater quantities of various pollutants — including toxic ones — than sandy riverbed materials. Whenever disturbed, they will serve as a source of additional secondary water contamination.
The territory of Dzerzhinsk will be partially flooded — an area where, until 1985, nineteen plants of all-union significance operated, all of them classified defense enterprises. No geochemical map or geochemical assessment of waste exists for this territory — Evgeny Koposov, Rector of NNGASU.
As the Cheboksary Reservoir fills to the 68-meter mark, the area of shallow waters will increase dramatically; their high water temperature and significant organic content will promote mass development of blue-green algae and other algal groups. This will lead to algal blooms in summer, which is extremely detrimental to water quality. Blooms already occur on the Volga reservoirs (the Nizhny Novgorod Reservoir in particular), and their harmful consequences are well known.
The full burden of the consequences of the water level rise will fall on Nizhny Novgorod Region and Mari El. For Chuvashia, only an insignificant portion of its territory would be flooded and damage would be minimal, whereas the Republic of Mari El will lose a third of its territory. Nizhny Novgorod Region will experience a rise in groundwater levels and a host of unresolved problems — for instance, drinking water problems, as opposing winds will effortlessly drive sewage from the Artemovsky meadows into the Oka water intakes.
Cultural heritage will be lost, and there will be irreversible consequences for the environment and human health.
Filling the reservoir will cause serious harm to the social infrastructure of the entire western half of Mari El. The settlement of Yurino and dozens of villages will be completely cut off from Yoshkar-Ola and other economic centers.
Impact on Safety
On the territory of the Republic of Mari El, in the Kilemary District, two anthrax burial sites will be flooded: one near the former village of Otary and one near the village of Senyushkino.[1] The risk of flood inundation by the Oshla and Malaya Kokshaga rivers of the burial site near the settlement of Lebedevsky will increase. Relocation of these burial sites is not possible.[2]
The sanitary condition of Nizhny Novgorod will deteriorate. Even now, in buildings with damp basements, sanitary authorities are unable to rid residents of gnats. What will happen when this becomes a mass-scale problem? Sporadic malaria cases in the form of imported infections have been recorded in Nizhny Novgorod Region over the past eleven years. The primary malaria vector — the Anopheles messeae mosquito — is recorded across virtually the entire territory of Nizhny Novgorod Region. In Nizhny Novgorod in 2009, the average seasonal density of malaria mosquitoes in resting sites was 32 individuals per square meter. Extermination operations targeting adult mosquitoes are carried out upon the registration of three-day malaria cases.
In recent years it has come to light that a powerful deep tectonic fault runs beneath the reservoir. This is evidenced by the discharge of deep groundwater with elevated concentrations of mercury, other heavy metals, and radon. As the water level rises, the load on the reservoir bed will increase, potentially triggering the activation of seismic processes. [3]
In the event of a breach of the Gorodets hydraulic structures at a level of 63 meters, the Zarechka part of Nizhny Novgorod will be flooded to a depth of two meters within just two hours. At a higher level, flooding would occur more rapidly and the flood depth would be greater.
Opinions of Nizhny Novgorod Residents
Sociological surveys in Nizhny Novgorod Region show that 95–97 % of the population opposes raising the water level in the Cheboksary Reservoir. The "Sword of Damocles" of the "Cheboksary flood" that perpetually hangs over us therefore provokes social tension and an erosion of public trust in federal authorities. Public organizations and residents have on numerous occasions initiated public mass events, petition drives in defense of their rights and interests, and protests against raising the water level in the Cheboksary Reservoir.
Nizhny Novgorod Region has been opposing the "Cheboksary flood" for decades. In 1995 and 2006, the Legislative Assembly of Nizhny Novgorod Region appealed to the President of Russia with a request to prevent any rise in the water level of the Cheboksary Reservoir; in January 2012, a similar appeal was sent to the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation; even earlier (in 1990–1992), the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Council of People's Deputies repeatedly issued similar appeals. Dozens of letters of the same content were sent to federal authorities by the current Governor V.P. Shantsev, by former governors, and by the authorities of the Republic of Mari El. In 1992, the position of the state authorities of Nizhny Novgorod Region and the Republic of Mari El was heard — by Order of the Government of Russia No. 468-r of 12.03.92, the current water level of the Cheboksary Reservoir was set at 63.0 meters, and the Ministry of Fuel and Energy of Russia was instructed, jointly with the Ministry of Finance of Russia and the regions, to carry out within four years all the work necessary for the operation of the reservoir at this 63-meter mark. Accordingly, the acts of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR aimed at preparing the reservoir zone for operation at the 68-meter mark — which JSC RusHydro invokes — should have been declared null and void.
However, no one has been held accountable for the failure to implement the decisions taken by the Government of Russia. Moreover, the forces responsible for that failure continue to persistently push the Government and the President of Russia toward measures that are highly inefficient and deeply unpopular among the population. As a result, work on a project that poses serious risks to the region continues. Given that the implementation of any project providing for a rise in the Cheboksary Reservoir level on the Volga would entail large-scale negative environmental and socioeconomic consequences across the Volga basin, a severe general deterioration of the ecological situation, the resettlement of residents, and significant expenditures on changes to the infrastructure and engineering protection of Nizhny Novgorod as a result of rising groundwater levels, any proposal to raise the Cheboksary Reservoir level is unacceptable for Nizhny Novgorod Region.
The conclusions of previous authoritative expert assessments, conducted on multiple occasions, are being completely ignored; diametrically opposite conclusions — alleging significant economic efficiency of the project and claiming it would greatly benefit the ecology of the regions — are being presented as fact. Beyond bewilderment, this generates in the public a sense of a high degree of corrupt interest in the project, which in the eyes of the population explains the heightened interest displayed by the authorities in revisiting previously adopted state decisions. In the more than twenty years that have passed since the decision was made to set the reservoir level at 63 meters, nothing has occurred (other than an increase in corruption) that would justify the persistence with which this project is being pushed through. On the contrary, new circumstances continue to emerge attesting to the significant negative consequences of operating the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station even at its normal pool level of 63 meters.
The project initiated by JSC RusHydro to increase electricity generation by raising the water level in the Cheboksary Reservoir is ecologically harmful, economically inefficient, and inadvisable. The very idea of raising the Cheboksary Reservoir level must be rejected once and for all as impermissible and as carrying irreversible, catastrophic consequences for Nizhny Novgorod Region.
River Mariners
River mariners on the problem of the The Gorodets Locks:
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the problem here is a bit different — the Volga itself is fine; the most problematic stretch is the Gorodets–N. Novgorod section, where the currents are strongest, there are lots of shallows, and the bends are sharp. The guaranteed depth on the whole Volga is 4 m, but on this stretch it's 3.5 m — and don't go thinking that's the actual depth... so after years of dredging this section and removing sediment from it, they lowered the riverbed, and along with it the water level dropped, while the lock sill in the lower pool naturally stayed where it was, so vessels pass through the Gorky hydraulic complex underloaded, meaning they run at a loss... to solve this problem there was a project to build a low-head dam in the area of Balakhna — I saw personally what it looked like on paper, meaning it wasn't even a real project, just a solution to the problem with calculations but no working documentation, and that was that! and the Chuvashs have wanted to raise the level since the time of the "Battle of Kulikovo"
this whole mess has been dragging on since Soviet times; anyone who has traveled downstream may have seen mooring walls standing far from the water's edge — those are echoes of the fact that they really did want to raise the level a long time ago, and then decided not to because of the possible ecological catastrophe. The Chuvashs have their own interest — electricity, obviously; they couldn't care less about our water level, it's simply of zero concern to them; right now the backwater from the Cheboksary Reservoir starts just past the Kstovo bend, where the river begins to slow down and gradually spread out — if the level gets raised by three meters, it'll be like the highest flood year, something like that... except that in high water there's a strong current, while here it'll disappear... I hope reason will prevail after all |
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Recollections of Local Residents about the Previous Rise in Water Level
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I remember very well the time before the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station existed. You could drink the water straight from the Volga opposite Makaryev. The thought of bringing your own water on an overnight fishing trip never even crossed your mind. On the sandy spits you could walk around freely and see the fish. I also remember the time when the flooding began. They ruined all the water meadows; the river turned into a giant dump, and the small rivers into tiny ones. At that time I was living in Lyskovo. People from Makaryev were being resettled to Lyskovo into prefabricated five-story apartment blocks. All the elderly were quickly resettled to the cemetery. One has to understand the stress of people who had spent their whole lives in their own homes and ended up in freezing concrete anthills in their old age.
I remember footage from a documentary about the exhumation of the cemetery in Makaryev. People were simply fainting. If they had raised it to 68 meters right away, we would no longer be able to see the Makaryev Monastery, many streets in the towns along the Volga above Cheboksary, and probably some in Nizhny as well. I myself now live in a house whose basement floods every spring when the water rises, and sometimes in summer during heavy rains too. Most likely my house won't survive a level rise. It will be hard to prove who is right here. We all need to rise up together against the water level increase. Otherwise we'll be living in a place called Gadyukino — which will simply be washed away. Sorry if this is a bit rambling. It's just hard to imagine what will happen. |
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The True Role of Dams
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here they're talking about navigation !!! Probably referring to a few private oil barges !!! as if nobody notices that the Volga is a solid brick of ice for 7 months of the year !!! Navigation lost all meaning a long time ago (the Stalinist kind — when steamboats hauled river sand up and down to meet the plan) !!! A hydroelectric station on a flatland river is like an F1 racing car with a Zaporozhets engine !!!! The only purpose of the GREAT Stalinist dams was raising the water level (briefly — 5–7 hours) to pass dry docks carrying submarines through ! And that, too, has been dead for about 20 years !!!! Ten times over, the very idea of raising the water level — after the decision was made to build a nuclear power plant — is sheer lunacy !!! |
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Well, at last someone has remembered one of the main reasons for building the hydroelectric station — raising the water level to transport submarines northward. But that was genuinely relevant decades ago. |
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Advocacy "for" raising the water level
RusHydro Blog. 10 Myths about Raising the Level of the Cheboksary Reservoir
"Emotional but poorly substantiated arguments about a 'dead sea' are not borne out by the operational experience of other reservoirs — for example, the Gorky Reservoir, located in the same Nizhny Novgorod Region, whose shores are literally dotted with rest homes, sanatoriums, hunting and fishing lodges."
"Resettling / local residents / people / is necessary in any case, even if the current reservoir level is maintained, because these people live in zones of existing waterlogging or flood inundation."
"The lower riverside part of Nizhny Novgorod lies at elevations of 69–80 m and therefore does not fall within the Cheboksary Reservoir's flood zone. At present, due to the absence of storm sewers and drainage systems, this part of the city experiences waterlogging (groundwater less than 3 m deep) that is historically existing and entirely unrelated to the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station, affecting approximately 33% of its area. Raising the reservoir to its design level could theoretically increase waterlogging by 26–40%, depending on the calculation method.
In practice, however, no waterlogging will occur, because raising the reservoir level provides for the mandatory construction of an engineering protection system that both eliminates the existing waterlogging and prevents waterlogging resulting from the reservoir."
"In Nizhny Novgorod Region alone, approximately 600,000 hectares of arable land have been abandoned and are reverting to forest — http://www.apk-inform.com/showart.php?id=64013. Pastureland is even less needed — pastoral livestock farming in the country is far from thriving, and more than 70 million hectares of pasture in Russia are unused."
Roman: Well, what else could you write on a blog belonging to RusHydro — that reservoirs are wonderful in every way!!! I live on the Volga, and the suffocating stench of the summer wind blowing off the river brings you to your senses pretty quickly; the green water of the Gorky Sea is clearly not fit for any sanitary purpose; the fish have taken on the habits of lake fish. And navigation has vanished into thin air!!!
The Volga before the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station dam was built
To live on the Volga, or on the shore of a dead sea?
As someone born, raised, and living on the Volga — a fisherman, hunter, local historian, naturalist, and nature lover with an environmental education and experience working in the state forest protection service — I have had the opportunity to observe the changes taking place on the Volga River and the territories adjacent to it from the 1960s to the present day, on the stretch from Nizhny Novgorod to Rabotki in Kstovo District.
Before the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station came online, no major changes occurred. Everything followed its natural course. Mazut and other petroleum products frequently drifted down the river, since there was heavy shipping traffic and oil-loading jetties stood nearby — the selo of Veliky Vrag (the Kstovo Bend — one of the Volga's celebrated fishing spots). But on the whole the water was far cleaner than it is today. Over the river hung the incomparable scent of meadow grasses and willow scrub, mingled with the fresh smell of Volga river water. The sand along the left bank was white, clean, and crunching underfoot, washed by the current.
Fish were plentiful in the Volga then. People fished freely from the banks and from boats using dip nets and cast nets, catching mainly small fish — shemaya and bleak. The fishery inspectorate left such anglers alone until the 1980s.
With the Consequences of the rise in the water level of the Cheboksary Reservoir in 1980, sweeping changes occurred — in the landscape, flora, and fauna both of the river itself and of the territories nearest to it.
At first the current in the Volga abruptly stopped without any rise in the water level. A large accumulation of filth was observed at the boundary where the current halted. Gradually that boundary moved upstream — from the selo of Bezvodnoye and on past the town of Kstovo. The water changed and became dirty. Before 1980, people in Veliky Vrag still rinsed laundry in the Volga. Once the water level rose, rinsing laundry became impossible. In the 1970s people washed their hair with soft Volga water and cooked fish soup using Volga water; today you need to wash with soap after swimming in the Volga, and fish soup is out of the question.
The rise in water level had a severe effect on riverside plants, animals, and fish. The rich flora and fauna of the river changed abruptly: the composition of aquatic algae shifted, the banks silted up and became overgrown with algae, water lilies, and other aquatic vegetation; the diverse crustaceans and other plankton that had once populated the water in abundance nearly disappeared. Fish numbers decline year by year. Sturgeon species — sterlet and sturgeon — fell sharply in numbers, as did pike perch, asp, ide, ruffe, perch, shemaya, bleak, white bream, and roach. Bream appeared in greater numbers, along with much fish infected with tapeworm. The feeding grounds of many species of animals and birds vanished underwater: mallards and pintails, waders, and moorhens disappeared from places where these species had previously lived.
The banks began to slump. The small rivers and streams flowing into the Volga became overgrown, shallowed, and lost the force of their current. Springs that had fed the floodplain's ponds and rivers were submerged. Groundwater pressure shifted at once, and new spring outlets appeared, triggering widespread landslide processes across a vast area. Floodplain lakes became waterlogged and overgrown with sedge and other vegetation.
The Volga's water became polluted and started to bloom earlier than before: at the end of June or beginning of July instead of August. Backwater lakes, once flushed and cleansed by the spring floods, are now flushed less thoroughly or not at all.
The Volga's channel began to silt up and its deep holes to fill in. The sandy spit along the Volga's left bank, stretching from the Kstovo Bend to the village of Zimenki — the Kstovo beach, one and a half kilometers long and wide enough not only for volleyball but for football — simply ceased to exist. The spit disappeared completely. Other spits along the banks disappeared in the same way. The sand lost its cleanliness and turned yellow.
Some hillocks, islets, and rises that had stood beside the ponds and rivers near the Volga subsided and spread out. The water in the Volga and the neighboring rivers and ponds now stands right at the foot of the bank — where you could once walk freely along the water's edge, you now have to wade.
The annual ice crossing opposite the selo of Veliky Vrag is no more: the ice melts through.
Raising the water level of the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station will cause destruction on an even greater scale.
People live along the banks of the Volga; they have settled, cultivated, and tended their native land — this is their home, their homeland, passed down from generation to generation since time immemorial. These territories hold a great wealth of things beyond counting, including historic sites and monuments that form the cultural heritage of our people. All of this could be submerged as a result of the flooding.
The conclusion is clear: a one-time "deepening" of the river channel by raising the water level with a dam subsequently leads to even greater silting of the channel, over an enormous distance. And how are the multitude of resulting problems to be solved? How do you later dredge river channels — with another water-level rise? With dredgers? How do you drain reservoirs to restore the channel and ecological balance?
To deepen a river, you must increase the current velocity. As the current velocity increases, so does the river's scouring capacity. The water will do everything by itself, and for a long time. Remove the dams — and the current velocity will increase. Another method is to narrow the river channel. But narrowing a dammed river is pointless because of the backwater. This method is applicable only in certain individual cases on short stretches. Artificially narrowing a river's natural channel disrupts the ecology and natural balance. Ice drift, the landscape, and the navigable capacity of the river will all deteriorate. Narrowing the channel will cause a sharp rise in flood levels. Blocked groundwater will seek new outlets, causing changes in groundwater levels, landslides, and waterlogging. Backwaters, inlets, fish spawning grounds, beaches, the flora and fauna of the shoreline, and the feeding grounds of animals — including birds and aquatic life — will all disappear.
The reckless practice of land reclamation through drainage of marshes and waterlogged territories must be stopped. This natural balance, created by nature itself, regulates flooding, year-round water reserves, and their proper management.
On drained territories (those crossed by ditches and with drained ponds and marshes), spring meltwater flows directly into the river without delay, without soaking into the soil — the result is flooding followed by the drying-out of river-basin areas and drought. Moreover, the water rushes all at once into the river over frozen ground, without entering the soil.
On territories undisturbed by drainage, with marshes and other water bodies intact, spring water slowly fills the river basin and releases it gradually, sharply reducing the risk of floods and high water. The water has time to seep into the ground, replenishing the water table and feeding small springs.
Fish move onto warm shallows, spawn, and manage to withdraw with their offspring before the water recedes. Fish spawn according to the season and weather conditions — water temperature. On drained territories, fish move into the meadows to spawn and, failing to complete spawning when the water drops sharply, are stranded in the meadows. The deposited spawn hangs on the grass before it has even developed into fry; the meadows smell of fresh fish and roe left on the ground. The dam floods the low-lying floodplain of the river — precisely the area that contains lakes and marshes, which serve as natural regulators of water flow throughout the entire year. The dam, alternately releasing and raising the water level, destroys fish constantly, especially in spring during spawning.
On a related note: land reclamation through draining marshes and other wetlands also leads to the disappearance of springs, rivulets, and small rivers. Drained territories become fire hazards, producing fires that are difficult to extinguish. The natural firebreaks are removed — firebreaks that also divided the forest into small separate sections for fire-prevention purposes. Instead of acting as firebreaks, drained marshes and other such territories become potential fire risks. After drainage, a territory becomes more fire-prone both qualitatively (fire-hazard classification) and quantitatively (the fire-hazardous area increases).
Land reclamation changes the climate: drained territories acquire a sharply continental character — intense heat, intense cold, sharp temperature swings, and low precipitation.
Today, in order to preserve and improve the ecological condition of the Volga and the territories bordering it, the water level in the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station reservoir must under no circumstances be allowed to rise. Technologies must be developed and introduced to restore the natural flow and replenishment of rivers, as well as technologies for utilizing the territory freed from water when the dams are drained — for developing a state-run economic complex of wind turbines and water mills.
On the Vatoma, the Kudma River, and other rivers flowing into the Volga, small dams with mills once stood. The remains of some are still visible today. In Kstovsky District there is even a selo called Zaprudnoye ("Behind the Dam"). I do not know what effect those small dams had on the surrounding environment — I did not live in those times. But judging by fish numbers, there was far more fish back then, and that is an indisputable fact.
There are many existing developments for generating electricity and other forms of energy — nanotechnologies and energy-saving technologies — that need to be implemented right now.
Wind power stations are available for purchase; turbines exist that generate electricity from a river's natural current, and much else besides, with no need whatsoever to raise the water level. The right bank of the Volga is an upland 100–200 meters high; streams simply flow down it, yet they could be generating electricity.
We need to calculate how much loss — material and moral — the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station flooding causes each year and has already caused. Calculate how much electricity is generated, expressed in monetary terms and in terms of production cost and the losses caused — both material and moral — each year. Calculate and include in the losses what profits could have been derived from the territories, enterprises, factories, towns, and settlements going under the floodwater, for each year.
Add to the losses the funds allocated for dealing with the consequences of flooding (resettling people, building new settlements, constructing and repairing flood-protection structures, clearing flooded territories, logging, and so on).
Calculate how much profit would be generated if the funds allocated for dealing with the consequences of flooding were redirected to the development of the territories, enterprises, factories, towns, and settlements going under the floodwater, and also directed toward developing other methods of electricity generation — and calculate what profit this would yield each year.
It has long been established that electricity generated by flatland rivers yields less profit than the territories that are lost to flooding.
The company RusHydro plans to hold public hearings in the near future on the possible raising of the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station level, and so I wish to appeal to all those who care about our nature and our Volga: please make sure you take part in these hearings and make your views known to the supporters of raising the water level. The voice of the people living on the banks of the Volga must be heard and taken into account.
Alexander Churazov, deputy of the Bezvodnensky rural council, Kstovo District, Nizhny Novgorod Region
A loan from nature
Hydroelectric stations on flatland rivers have many drawbacks. In some countries, the restoration of fish stocks alone has been sufficient grounds for decommissioning a hydroelectric station. Representatives of Nizhny Novgorod Region have repeatedly approached the project designers with the observation that it is necessary to assess the costs of a possible return to the elevation mark of 63 m. However, the designers have refused to do so time and again. And what is to be done if the costs of water treatment turn out to be several times greater than the revenue from selling electricity?
Folk art
Song of the Rotting Volga
Long, long ago The river Volga Began to rot Nearly rotted through The Volga Nobody cares No ripe grain in the fields No white snow on the hills The Volga flows ownerless Only there are no fish More than seventeen years They pour in everything Whatever they could And over the water Hangs a stinking smog When you come down for a drink Don't even think Of dipping your feet In the Volga! Long, long ago The river Volga Began to rot Nearly rotted through The Volga Nobody cares No ripe grain in the fields No white snow on the hills The Volga flows ownerless Only there are no fish The Volga rotted long ago Must be thirty years by now They sealed up the beautiful Volga With a cascade of dams At the command Of political swine Long, long ago The Volga stands still Seventh decade now The Volga is rotting And besides filth There is nothing in her…. Round up everyone Who built the Cheboksary dam And give them seventeen years Behind bars….
What the forests will look like after the Cheboksary Reservoir is raised
Photo: what the forests will look like after the Cheboksary Reservoir is raised: this was once a forest, another angle (photos by http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/segavi17)
