Romanians Warn of Danube Delta Ecological Disaster

Romania is turning up the pressure on its eastern neighbour, Ukraine, over plans to build a canal through its section of the Danube Delta, which Romania says poses a serious threat to the wildlife and eco-system of this unique natural habitat.

Ukraine started work on the first part of the construction of the Bystroe canal on August 26. The project involves dredging an existing channel and turning it into a 160 km waterway linking the Black Sea with the Danube.

In so doing, Ukraine is defying a chorus of condemnations and expressions of concern from international environmental bodies, foreign governments and Romania itself. All are worried by the potential damage the new expanded canal will inflict on the nesting sites of some of Europe's rarest birds.

The Danube Delta is world famous for richness and variety of its wildlife. It is home to more than 300 species of bird, 160 kinds of fish, including caviar-bearing sturgeon, and 800 types of plants, many of then found nowhere else on the Continent.

Romulus Stiuca, director of the Romanian Danube Delta National Institute, told IWPR that casualties of the project will be many, starting with "the largest colony of pelicans in Europe".

Stiuca predicts that that new canal may inflict an "ecological disaster" on the Danube Delta. "Plants that are unique will disappear completely from the earth," he said.

The first results of construction activity are already visible. Naturalists have noted that hundreds of birds abandoned their nests this summer, almost certainly because of the noise of construction.

Since May, when Ukraine's plans became apparent, ecologists from around the world have repeatedly warned that the biosphere in the delta faces a calamity.

"The canal will change the hydrological balance of the delta," Radu Popa, a Romanian researcher at the University of Southern California, warned IWPR.

"The water table will lower and evaporation will intensify," he added. "We will see real damage done to the habitat of the majority of fish species. Birds will lose nesting areas."

His predictions are endorsed by nearly all international wildlife experts, who say the new, wider canal will inevitably drain water out of the delta, wreaking havoc with the marshland habitat.

Other unwelcome side-effects are expected to include increased oil pollution from the use of the canal by ships and more noise pollution, both having negative affects on the flora and fauna.

According to Popa, the new canal will damage not only the Danube Delta's habitat, but that of the Black Sea region.

"All the nutrients and chemicals used for farming on the banks of the Danube flow into the underground water supply and then the river," he said. "The reeds and plants in the delta filter these substances.... [but] if the reeds are destroyed the delta will no longer act as a giant filter and the ecosystem of the Black Sea may be damaged."

Separately from the latest row over the fate of the delta, Romania and Ukraine have been at loggerheads for years over the Black Sea, mainly over fishing and exploration rights in the north.

Around 13,000 square km of sea, potentially rich in oil and gas, is at stake. On September 16, Romania took its case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

As for the Danube Delta, Romania, which holds 80 per cent of the area, has asked Ukraine to halt building the Bystroe canal until international experts have had a chance to assess its environmental effect.

Romania's environment minister, Speranta Ianculescu, earlier this year urged Ukraine to come up with a survey on the possible impact of the canal.

What Bucharest received in late July was a ten-page document. It was "absolutely insufficient for us", Ianculescu said recently.

In spite of environmentalist warnings and Romania's complaints, Ukraine says work on the canal will continue, saying the project will improve the economy and bring new jobs to a poor region. The completion date is the end of 2008.

Ukraine has repeatedly dismissed environmental concerns and accused Romania of exaggerating the dangers.

However, Romania's case, which has been given much publicity in the country's local media, is attracting ever-greater international support.

The European Union officially urged Ukraine to stop building the canal last month and has sent a team of EU experts to Romania to investigate the area in order to draft a report on the impact of the Bystroe project.

The European Commission warned Kiev that the project could seriously harm EU-Ukrainian relations. "It's not a welcome development. The opening of this canal is not going to help our relations with Ukraine," commission spokesman Jean-Cristophe Filori told a press conference in Brussels.

German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has also weighed in. After discussing the Bystroe project with Prime Minister Adrian Nastase on his visit to Romania a few weeks ago, he said, "Such construction should be done only after an international analysis of the impact on the environment, otherwise it is irresponsible."

The chancellor cautioned, however, that Berlin could not prevent a German private building company from getting involved in this project. This was believed to refer to Josef Mobius Bau AG, a firm Ukraine has employed to build the channel.

Amid increasing international concern, the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF, one of the leading conservation organisations, has condemned Ukraine for continuing building operations. "This action of Ukraine is an offence to the whole Danube river, a European and world treasure," it said in a recent report.

The United States has also expressed concern. At a news briefing in late August, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said Washington was "deeply concerned about the environmental impact of this construction project and by the lack of action by the government of Ukraine to be responsive to its treaty obligations and to the positions stated by other countries and international organisations."

The reference to treaty obligations relates to conventions Romania and Ukraine have both either signed or inherited on the delta, including the 1971 Ramsar international convention on wetlands, a bilateral Ukraine-Romania agreement and its designation by UNESCO as a "Man and the Biosphere" site.

As the dispute escalates, Romania has threatened to construct a separate canal of its own between the Danube and Black Sea, rendering the Bystroe waterway redundant.

This would be about 20 km long and drain off most of the Danube's water before it even reached Ukraine's stretch of the river, making navigation on the Bystroe impossible. The project would cost Romania about 4 million euro and be ready in two years, the government estimates.

Daniela Tuchel works for the Bucharest-based newspaper Libertatea.