You're reading: Carpathian scenery sacrificed for clean energy

Beloved by tourists, the Carpathian Mountains are about to undergo a fundamental change. Regional authorities plan to build more than 500 small hydroelectricity power stations on mountain rivers, funneling them into pipelines – a project that has been widely criticized by ecologists.

The plan
was revealed more than a year ago, after regional councils in the Lviv,
Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattyia and Chernivtsi oblasts approved plans to
introduce the hydro power stations at specific locations.

From that
moment, companies were free to build private power stations in the locations. However,
businesses didn’t rush to take the opportunity. Just one company,
Commerts-Consult from Uzhgorod, is known to be constructing stations in
Zakarpattyia Oblast. So far only one is up and running, but the firm plans to
build 16 more.

Commerts-Consult
wasn’t available for comments, despite repeated attempts.

This is what Carpathian rivers can become after the mass construction of hydro power stations.

Interest in
generating electricity from renewable sources is based on the so-called green, or feed-in tariff, which guarantees significant revenues. According to legislation, state
company Energorynok is obliged to buy energy from companies using sun, wind,
biogas or water (but only small hydro power stations) to generate power for a
high price.

One
kilowatt hour of energy produced at a small hydro plant is bought by
Energorynok for Hr 0.84, four times the price it charges individuals and
roughly what businesses are paying. At present, 38 companies in Ukraine have
licenses to operate small hydro power stations, 32 of which are using their
rights to sell electricity to the state.

But the
initiative has been met by criticism from ecological activists.

“Ukraine is
an importer of energy, there is no way that corrupting the Carpathian
(landscape) with power stations was a necessary step,” says deputy head of
National Ecology Center of Ukraine Olexiy Vasyliuk.

Vasyliuk
strongly opposes the idea, which he claims could lead to the creation of up to
570 power stations, covering two-thirds of all rivers in the Carpathian region.
He argues it can threaten the local environment, notably because of the
derivation tubes that will capture the water to increase the pressure at the
stations’ turbines.

“Rivers
will be closed for fishing, canoeing or rafting, which means that the flow of
tourists will weaken, depriving some locals of their main income (renting rooms
to tourists),” Vasyliuk says. “The scenery will be absolutely
corrupted, and fish will die.”

Aside from
the aesthetical and touristic issues, ecologists claim the hydro plants present
a threat in the case of earthquakes. According to Vasyliuk, water reservoirs
that will be built as part of the project can add two points to the magnitude
of any earthquake in the area, turning even a slight tremor into a serious
danger.

Olexander
Kuksin, a project manager of Kreston GCG, a business consultancy, is a strong
believer of hydroelectric stations, but doubts they can be introduced smoothly in
Ukraine.

“In Ukraine small hydroelectric stations will be, most likely,
constructed without care about nature,” he says. “But still, the harm to nature
won’t be as huge as protesters describe.”

Locals
don’t seem too concerned. Vasyl Yonash owns a guesthouse in Kostylivka in
Zakarpattyia Oblast, near the alleged geographical center of Europe, a popular
tourist site. One of the plants will be built in the village limits. Yonash says
representatives of Commerts-Consult have already been to the village and
declared their intention to construct a station on an arm of the local river
Tysa.

“We were told that the station is safe and that a derivation pipe will
only cover about 100 meters of the river,” Yonash said, adding that he hopes
the station will provide six or seven jobs for the village, which desperately
needs them.

Nonetheless, according to the plan approved by
regional council, the pipe will capture not 100 meters, but about 1.4
kilometers of river, seriously spoiling the view in Kostylivka.

A collection action on March 21 invited opponents of the project to take photos
with an “I’m against stations” sign to build a
petition. The National Ecology Center collected about one hundred of photos
sent by enthusiasts.

Ihor Andriushchenko

One of the
participants, Ihor Andriushchenko, a journalist and traveler from Kyiv, told
Kyiv Post about his motives:

“I welcome
clean energy, but the method used here is no good. They counted how much
renewable energy they want to see and then planned a certain number of stations
to satisfy it. It’s a three-digit number! At all rivers. And where do rivers
go? Right, into the pipes … I want mountains to stay mountains. Because I’m
dazzled by Carpathian scenary, not by a pot of money on the table.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].