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Dnieper reservoir cascade

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The water reservoirs of the Dnieper River in Ukraine pose a significant threat of a large-scale human-made disaster if their dams fail. Such a threat is typical for reservoir dams; however, the Dnieper reservoirs are especially dangerous because of the geographical conditions, as well as the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster and other nuclear-related environmental threats in the region.

While the safety studies of each dam are regularly performed and the public assurances about individual dam's condition were given multiple times,[1] the comprehensive analysis of the overall safety of the dams as a system or the impeding dangers that the damaged dam would cause has never been performed to this day. Various different scenarios of what would happen in case of the dam damage predict the catastrophes varying only by the scale (provided that one of the dams would indeed break down). According to the worst predictions and taking into account the already available radioactive contamination, a dam accident may result in a major threat for significant territories of Ukraine, and, possibly, the Black Sea basin.

The flooding risk

Landsat satellite photo of the Kiev Reservoir.

Like other reservoirs, Dnieper reservoirs pose a potential threat of causing major flooding if their dams fail. Such damage may be inflicted by a powerful natural disaster (e.g., an earthquake), a human-made disaster, or a deliberate attack by terrorists or enemy forces at war.

The dams are supposed to be strong enough to survive natural and terrorist threats. Both their construction schemes and government efforts work towards this goal. For instance, some engineers guarantee that every Dnieper dam will survive an earthquake (to its typical regional extent), meteorite or aircraft falling.[1] There are also countermeasures against overflooding and malfunction of dams. Authorities pay significant attention to safeguarding the dams and bridges by special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other security agencies.[2]

A failure of the Kiev Reservoir would cause a flooding of the low-lying areas of Kiev, mainly densely populated residential neighborhoods.[3] The aftermath of a possible complex flooding also include the widespread contamination by industrial and urban wastes and creation of swamps on bottoms of emptied reservoirs.

In 2001–2003 the Security Service of Ukraine organized exercises on the Kiev Hydroelectric station, simulating a possible terrorist attack. The results of the exercises were considered satisfactory.[3]

Government position and recent concerns

New concerns arose in 2005 after a fake terrorist threat case. A police officer, dissatisfied with his commanders, anonymously called an emergency line stating that he had planted a bomb in a cargo train crossing the Kiev Reservoir's dam. An immediate check proved the threat to be fake and the alerter was arrested. But the incident caused another wave of public concern.[4]

On May 30, 2006 researcher Vasily Kredo alerted the nation again, calling the Kiev Reservoir “the most dangerous place on the planet”. The researcher says there is a remote possibility of a “radioactive tsunami from the Kiev Sea” that would kill 15 million and make Ukraine “never revive again”.[5]

In 2012, the former Kiev Hydroelectric Power Plant manager and veteran stated that its dam is guaranteed capable to withstand any physical threat except large space object impact or deliberate military attack of significant scale. However, an emergency plan exists to safely minimize consequences of a space impact if there would be an early warning on it.[6]

See also

References

Notes
  1. ^ a b "The dam of the Kiev's power plant will be around for a thousand of years", - the chief engineer of the "Skhema Dnepra" [the "Pattern of the Dnieper river"] institution Yefim Bakshayev seems to be tired of repeating those words. "The catastrophe is possible if it is directly hit by the nuclear bomb. I think that no one would then be around to be saved from flooding. Yes, the accidents are possible at peace time if the metallic structures of the dam are not replaced on time. But this is taken care of for the Kiev dam. Besides, in the Netherlands, one third of the country spans across the territories gained from the sea. People build the reservoirs there for 400 years and no one is afraid of this proximity. Most important is to build the dam competently, provide it with modern equipment and follow on its operation [...] The capital is fully protected from flooding"
    Template:Ru icon Lyudmila Kovalchuk, "Kiev Reservoir: where the radioactive silt is now there were 52 villages", Sevodnya, March 23, 2005. Cite error: The named reference "assur" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  2. ^ Template:Uk icon Ю. П. Сурмін, Р. Н. Аврамчук, СТРУКТУРИ, ЗАСОБИ І СТРАТЕГІЯ РОЗВ'ЯЗАННЯ ПРОБЛЕМ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ БЕЗПЕКИ (Framework, means and strategy of the state security.), by National Institute of State Security, Ukrainian governmental agency.
  3. ^ a b Template:Ru icon/Template:Uk icon Zoya Vishnevskaya "Before the thunder Rolls".Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), March 13–19, 2004. Available online in Russian, in Ukrainian
  4. ^ Template:Ru icon/Template:Uk icon "The caller is out of the calling area", Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), April 23 - May 6, 2005, available online in Russian, in Ukrainian
  5. ^ Template:Ru icon Kiev Sea dam is in 93% emergency state, Korrespondent.net, May 30, 2006
  6. ^ Киевскую дамбу может разрушить только метеорит или война — Эксперт
Bibliography

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