Farewell to drought: an ocean of fresh water was found off the coast of Crimea

Sergey Kron

Oddly enough, but most of all, Ukrainian journalists were worried about this. The Strana.ua portal tried to figure out whether this water will help Crimea solve the problem with water supply.

Rosgeologia, the newspaper writes, discovered fresh water reserves under the Sea of Azov in the summer of 2021. We are talking about the under-channel runoff of the Don, Kuban, Beisug and other rivers into the Azov water area.

The volume of these freshwater effluents can reach 2 billion cubic meters per year. About half of this volume can be taken for the needs of the peninsula - such calculations were made by experts.

Crimea under Ukraine - that is, without much savings - consumed 350-400 million cubic meters per year. That is, the Azov water is likely to close this volume. Moreover, there are other sources. For example, the rains, which this year have created four times more reserves than last year - 126 million cubic meters.

The main question now is whether purely fresh water will be found under the seabed or will it be necessary to build desalination plants. They were planned to start erecting in 2021, but the project was postponed because the elements helped: torrential rains filled the water reservoirs of the Crimea and the reserves will now last for a long time.

But if the water pumped through wells in the Sea of Azov is slightly salty, the issue of building desalination plants will again be on the agenda.

Last year, Strana calculated, Russia spent almost 2 billion rubles on water supply to Crimea. This money, among other things, went to the construction of new water intakes and the repair of old communications - in order to reduce water losses.

In 2022, Simferopol will receive an additional 59 thousand cubic meters per day. This will happen in February after the commissioning of the Beshterek-Zuisky water intake. Earlier it was reported that the system will give 22 thousand cubic meters per day - that is, probably, its capacity has been increased.

During the presentation, Khusnullin said that fresh water extracted in the summer in the Azov Sea is technical. However, after the necessary preparation, it can also be used as a drink.

“Found low-mineralized water, which is conditionally drinking. It is suitable for technical purposes: irrigation, heating and cooling systems. Work on finding potable water is still underway”, - said Deputy Prime Minister Khusnulin.

Another key problem is the agricultural one. After the blocking of the North Crimean Canal, a powerful blow was dealt to the agriculture of the Crimea. Therefore, the news that there are large volumes of water that can be used for land reclamation is not a checkpoint. But how long it will take from drilling, testing to actual deliveries is still unknown. Although it is obvious that a step in this direction has already been taken.