(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Fury from fishermen: worst Ukrainian ecological catastrophe since Chernobyl after dam breach [1] [] Date: 2023-06-11 The pungent smell of fish fills the air as we approach the banks of the waterway that is on every Ukrainian’s mind this week. Serhii Sheptyuk has, like many residents along the Dnipro River, put a bucket on the shoreline to track how fast the waterline is receding. “This is the first time in my life I’ve seen something like this,” the 69 year old said, as he wades through the water, observing what many experts are calling the worst ecological crisis in Ukraine since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Sheptyuk wades into water, pulling out trash that is being revealed by the swift lowering of the river’s water level. Sheptyuk alternates between sadness and anger – the latter directed at the Russian military. "If a monkey sits on a tree branch and you see him cutting his own tree branch off by himself, what else can you say about it? These are the consequences," he said, adding a few choice unprintable terms to bring the point home. “It’s a cursed nation. [Russia] should have been strangled the moment it was born.” 150 tonnes of industrial chemicals – specifically lubricants – have been washed away due to the dam collapse, President Zelenskyy said. Flood waters will engulf towns, gas stations, and farms -- and those waters will "become contaminated by agrochemicals and oil products and then flow into the Black Sea,” The Guardian reported. Here in Zaporizhzhia, we are standing upstream of Kakhovka Dam, which all available evidence indicates the Russians breached earlier this week – to disastrous results. Engineering and munitions experts told the New York Times that a deliberate explosion inside the Russia-controlled Kakhovka dam was the most likely culprit for the breach. Downstream of the dam, there has been catastrophic flooding in areas like Kherson. Upstream of the dam, where we are, locals watch the river helplessly as the waterline backs off more and more. A couple fishes along the Dnipro River. You can see the brown marks along the shore that mark where the water level was just a couple days prior. The Dnipro River, after all, is no ordinary waterway. It’s a critical source of fresh drinking water for the residents of the country. Farmers depend on it to water a large portion of the country’s crops."Pretty much everyone here was engaged with the river in one way or another," Sheptyuk said. Historically, most of the shipping in the country flowed up and down the river, stopping at the ports of Kyiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. And the river has marked the boundary between western Ukraine and eastern Ukraine; the line between predominantly Ukrainian-speaking territory and predominantly-Russian territory. As the waterline continues to fall back, Sheptyuk sees trash in the mud -- and he just won't have it. He wades out into the water barefoot, to pick up glass and discarded fishing equipment. He has been fishing his entire life along the Dnipro, but mourns the changes due to the war. The ferry that operated along the river is closed down. Now many locals who were fishing no longer do so, due to missile attacks, restrictions and pollution. An unknown orange foam is accumulating along the banks of the Dnipro River. Locals tell us they’ve never seen this before. Along this stretch of the river, fishermen are reporting little to no luck in the days after the dam breach – an unusually long spell of not being able to find a catch. In one recent survey, nineteen species of fish were found in the Dnipro River, with a plurality of the fish being bream. Traditionally, the Dnipro has been the site for the vast majority of the country's freshwater catch. Denys Loyko, a man from the now-Russian-occupied town of Enerhodar, is at another point on the river. In English, he tells, us, “fucking Russians!” With nothing nibbling, he’s left just to stare at the visible brown lines along the river that just days ago marked where the water level stood. In just a day the water has fallen about three feet. “They are fucking animals for doing this,” he grimaces, referring to the Russians who blew the dam. There ARE places along the Dnipro where the fish are biting, but because an ecological disaster was looming, and the fish have less places to hide. As the water in the Dnipro flows out and causes a humanitarian crisis due to flooding downstream, slow-flowing tributaries are quickly running dry. In one of those streams near Zaporizhzhia, we ran into a group of men who were drinking beers in the afternoon sun and having a ton of luck catching fish. In about five days, one of the fishermen said, this waterway was likely to be completely dry. Any fish which had not already escaped by that time would be dead. Oleksii and his friends enjoy what may be one of their last times fishing at this location due to the Kakhovka Dam breach. Oleksii, who declined to give his last name – noting only that he was “the well-known Oleksii” – was not optimistic about the future: “It will affect everything. Because soon there will be no water at all,” he said. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/11/2174664/-Fury-from-fishermen-worst-Ukrainian-ecological-catastrophe-since-Chernobyl-after-dam-breach Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/