Viktoria Hubareva
Unprecedented pollution of a Ukrainian river caused colossal damage to its ecosystem. Read on to learn what can be expected in the future, how quickly the river can really recover, and what exactly caused the ecological disaster.
The Seim River flows through Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions and from there through Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions. In August, a fish die-off was recorded in the Seim, and analyses showed significant violation of the maximum allowable concentrations of ammonium and suspended solids, among other organic substances. Two weeks later, additional contamination was reported. Moreover, the contaminated water traveled downstream into the Desna River, the waters of which are used in Kyiv for drinking water.
Blackened water, stench, and fish die-off in the Seim at summer’s end
On 27 August, Ukraine’s State Agency for Land Reclamation, Fisheries, and Food Programs reported that the fish die-off resulted from critically low levels of dissolved oxygen in the river water (<1 mg/l, where the minimum allowable level was 4 mg/l). The decrease in oxygen levels was caused by organic matter in the water. In the last days of August, the State Fisheries Agency had already collected over 17 metric tons of dead fish from the Seim.
Later, the pollution spread throughout the entire Seim River basin in Sumy Oblast and reached the Chernihiv region. The water was black near the city of Baturin, and the air smelled of rot and ammonia; dead fish floated in the river. Concentrations of dissolved oxygen in the water remained critically low for approximately one week throughout the entire section of the river being monitored.
Repeated discharges, contaminated water in the Desna River
A week after the initial pollution, the river water gradually regained its quality, but that pollution had moved downstream along the Seim and from there drained into the Desna River, of which the Seim is a tributary.
At the same time, toward the middle of September, experts began to record the first indications of changes in water color and turbidity levels in the Desna River in the Kyiv region. Experts recommended stocking up on drinking water; residents of the capital receive as much as 60% of their drinking water from the Desna. Despite this, the Kyiv water utility reported that the situation was being monitored and all drinking water indicators were within acceptable limits.
But on 14 September, new pollution was reported: “The water is still black and odiferous at the international border in the Seim watershed. The discharge appears to be recurring,” wrote Serhiy Panchenko, a scientist that had been consistently monitoring the situation. Further deterioration of the situation in Seim was also confirmed in the Sumy region by Ukraine’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources.
On 18 September, the Seim’s water quality was still deteriorating. Samples collected at a water quality monitoring station located near the village of Chumakovo (sample collection site closest to the border with the Russian Federation) showed the oxygen content of the water to be zero (the minimum level is 4 mg per cubic decimeter (dm3). The water contained 40.5 mg/dm3 of suspended solids (the standard is 0-25 mg/dm3), and had excessive chemical oxygen demand of 86 mg/dm3 (the standard is 15 mg/dm3).
What losses might residents face as a result of Seim’s pollution?
For residents of the Sumy and Chernihiv regions, bans on swimming, watering livestock with river water, use of water from the Seim for irrigation, and fishing were announced in early September. These bans are still in effect (as of mid-September). Additionally, there has been no ban on the use of tap water, since both Sumy and Chernihiv use artesian wells.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources has already managed to estimate the damage caused by the Seim pollution incident: 405 million hryvnia (9.8 million US dollars). But since the pollution recurred, the amount will most likely increase.
Scientist Serhiy Panchenko noted that the economic damage to residents could be colossal:
“Pollution of the Seim has affected a huge number of people, even in the capital Kyiv. For villagers living along the river, it is difficult to even water a cow or send their flocks of geese and ducks to water. Someone lost their part-time job due to the fish die-off. All residents along the Seim can smell the water’s strong stench. Millions of residents in the capital are at risk of reduced water supply due to possible filtration problems. These issues clearly demonstrate the ecosystem services that the river provided to us. The concept of ecosystem services manifests itself most fully when those services disappear. How can you water a cow or purify water for the capital without the river? So we count in hryvnia: 405 million in losses? Unlikely.”
Pollution likely stems from damage to industrial plants
A criminal case was opened in response to pollution in the river. According to the State Fisheries Agency, the pollution’s probable source is the discharge of pollutants over the border in Russia. The State Environmental Inspectorate in Sumy region also reported that water turbidity in the Seim near the state border may indicate the discharge of unknown substances in Russia, adding that it is impossible to accurately definitively determine the source of the pollution today, since this requires access for sample collection and examining upstream areas. Of course, these areas are out of reach, either in Ukraine’s border zone, where access is very limited and restricted, or in the aggressor’s country.
According to information available to the Sumy Inspectorate, sugar and alcohol plants and a tannery in the town of Tetkino were destroyed or damaged as a result of military actions in Russia’s Kursk region. Discharges from these enterprises could have caused the pollution.
Given the lack of any reports in the Russian media about deteriorating water quality in the Seim River in the Kursk or Belgorod regions, it is likely that the pollution event occurred in the border town of Tetkino (or perhaps even closer to the border).
The Seim has “died” before
Deputy Director of the State Water Agency Igor Hopchak also supports the theory that the pollution’s source is discharges from factories in Tetkino. Furthermore, according to him, this is not the first time:
“In 2011, there was identical pollution caused by the same plant that discharged into the Seim River. At that time, the Russian Federation admitted that they had an emergency situation, and they discharged an additional five million cubic meters from their reservoir to flush the Seim River. Today, of course, our neighbors don’t do the same,” Gopchak commented.
There were also more recent cases of pollution of the Seim as early as the spring of 2024, but they were not widely covered by the news media. Prior to these August iterations of pollution and dead fish in the Seim, a strong stench and cloudy water were reported in May. The State Environmental Inspectorate reported pollution on 27 May, but this message was not widely publicized.
That pollution was preceded by a report in Russian media on 18 May about the shelling of a sugar factory in Tetkino, but there was no report regarding which of the company’s specific facilities were damaged. For this reason direct parallels cannot be drawn between military actions in Tetkino and pollution of the Seim River. For example, although Russian media reported on the shelling of a sugar factory in Tetkino in November 2022, pollution of the Seim did not follow. At the same time, Mark Zheleznyak, a professor at the Institute of Radioecology at Fukushima University, reported that, starting on 13 August—on the eve of the river’s pollution event in Ukraine—the sugar factory in Tetkino burned for four days.
“Today, the Seim is lifeless.” Can the river’s ecosystem services be restored?
Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Sergey Afanasyev noted: “Today, the Seim River is lifeless. How soon will it be revived? Not only fish died there. All living things died: invertebrates, mollusks, insects. On the one hand, they are food sources for fish, and on the other, they ensure the river’s functioning.”
The river will not be completely cleaned up anytime soon. In places where water quality has returned to acceptable levels for now and dead fish have been removed, traces of pollution nevertheless remain. Chernihiv resident Natalia Pavlenko-Voskresenskaya used a Facebook post to describe the situation on the Seim after the first discharge event. According to her, before the pollution, there were many fish, frogs, and birds in the river. “Now it seems like the river is dead,” Natalia wrote. She also wrote that silt on the riverbed is black, the stench remains, and there is “green slime” in the water.
Nevertheless, Academician Afanasyev states that nature is capable of self-purification, and the river’s water flow will gradually dilute the pollution. This only relates to water quality in the river itself. When the conversation turns to cleaning and restoring the whole ecosystem, much more time may be required. Fish must return to the river, and other organisms need to recover. These processes may take much more time, and how much time exactly remains unknown. The scale of pollution was unprecedented and indisputable. Ukraine has yet another subject area for conducting future scientific research on the restoration of ecosystems.
As of the day this article was published, the water quality monitoring station located near the village of Chumakove (the closest to the border with the Russian Federation among those that show results), all water quality indicators in the Seim are normal, but the damage remains.
Translated by Jennifer Castner
Main image: Polluted river Seim Source: hromadske.radio
