Crimea's resort of Alushta switching to 10-hour water rationing due to water shortage
SIMFEROPOL. Feb 25 (Interfax) - The resort town of Alushta will start rationing its water supply by ten hours per day from Thursday due to a severe drought on the Crimean Peninsula, becoming the third major populated locality of Crimea to introduce water rationing after Simferopol and Yalta.
"Alushta will switch to water rationing on February 25. Tap water will be available from 5:00 a.m. Moscow time to 10:00 a.m. Moscow time and from 5:00 p.m. Moscow time to 10:00 p.m. Moscow time," the town administration said earlier. The Voda Kryma water supplier confirmed this information to Interfax on Wednesday.
These measures are being introduced due to low water reserves in the Izobilnenskoye reservoir.
The Black Sea resort of Yalta, in turn, is returning to a six-hour water supply schedule due to low reserves. The Yalta administration said earlier this month that the city itself and villages in the so-called Greater Yalta area were receiving water "almost around the clock" by making use of additional resources such as waterfalls and rivers, and were taking almost no water from the Zagorskoye and Schastlivenskoye reservoirs.
"However, due to a decrease in water reserves in the local resources, water supply to the Yalta city municipality will switch back to the previous schedule of guaranteed water supply, i.e. from 6:00 a.m. Moscow time to 9:00 a.m. Moscow time and from 6:00 p.m. Moscow time to 9:00 p.m. Moscow time," the Water Services Company of the Southern Coast of Crimea supplier said on Wednesday evening.
Crimea suffered from a water deficit in 2019 and 2020. According to the Federal Agency for Water Resources, the shortage may persist in 2021.
Simferopol and another 39 populated localities in its vicinity started rationing water in late August 2020 (the majority of them introduced a six-hour water supply schedule: three hours in the morning and three in the evening). The Yalta resort town and 31 populated localities around it joined the water rationing system in mid-December 2020.
Sevastopol is on high alert due to the water deficit.
The Russian government has drawn up a water supply plan for Crimea, which consists of 14 measures, including well drilling, pipe repairs, and construction of desalination facilities. The overall cost of such projects is 48 billion rubles.