Volga interregional prosecutor for environmental issues Vera Soldatova: Up to 96 % sunken watercrafts unowned

All watercrafts drowned in basins of Kuibyshev and Nizhnekamsk water-storage basins should be lifted and scrapped. This task was set today before appropriate Tatarstan departments by Volga interregional conservation prosecutor Vera Soldatova at a joint interdepartmental meeting “On additional measures on activating work on finding, lifting and utilization of sunken watercrafts on the territory of Tatarstan.

The meeting was held in House of RT government with participation of RT Prime Minister Ildar Khalikov.

Opening the meeting, Head of RT government noted that issues of lifting and utilization of watercrafts should be solved in a comprehensive way. First of all, ecological state of basins depends on this factor to a large extent. Drowned watercrafts are cluttering up waters of rivers and making problems for navigation safety.

Volga interregional prosecutor on environmental issues Vera Soldatova reminded that her department has been handling this problem for many years. There are many controlling bodies now, but no one is engaged into the issues of lifting and utilization of drowned watercrafts. By words of Vera Soldatova, a few years ago 800 watercrafts drowned in Volga basin. Today, according to conducted supervision measures and collected information the number is 2300.

In fact, the main challenge is absence of special machinery for lifting drowned watercrafts. But still 1491 of them have been lifted already and 111 repaired and put into operation.

Vera Soldatova underlined that the majority of drowned watercrafts are located in Astrakhan oblast and the Republic of Tatarstan. She reminded likewise that in 2008 a republican targeted program “Cleaning of water area of Kuibyshev and Nizhnekamsk basins from drowned and abandoned watercrafts in 2009-2011”.

Head of Kazan interregional prosecutor’s office on environmental issues Oleg Daminov reported in detailed on measures taken for solving the mentioned problems.

Summarizing, Ildar Khalikov said it is necessary to apply all the efforts for solving this problem in a relatively short time.