500 tons of wood – large blockages will be eliminated on the Kazanka River as part of the Free Current project
In 2023, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Tatarstan is implementing measures to eliminate tree blockages in the water area of the Kazanka River within the framework of the Free Current project. The work is carried out within the framework of the second stage of the pilot research project of the Ministry of Ecology "Improvement of the ecological state of rivers and reservoirs of the Republic of Tatarstan" on the example of the Kazanka River. The first results of the "Free Current" were told today at a press conference at the Republican Agency for Press and Mass Communications "Tatmedia" by Deputy Minister of Ecology Egor Tarnavsky and Deputy Chairman Andrey Agarkov, Regional Branch of the Russian Geographical Society in the Republic of Tatarstan.
Blockages of trees pose a danger to small vessels, violate the natural conditions of the habitat, are a storage of household waste entering the river from settlements, and reduce the speed of the river flow, which leads to siltation of the watercourse. At the moment, the contractor of the Tatarstan branch of the Russian Geographical Society has dismantled 13 places of tree debris – this is 800 cubic meters of wood, 500 tons of trees, more than 200 bags of household garbage have been collected. A total of 10 km of the river has been passed.
"This year our main task is to dismantle the rubble and collect the garbage that flowed down the river and blocked the Cauldron completely. We had one large blockage where we had to get 350-400 cubic meters of wood out of the water. It was about 10 meters long and 10 meters wide and 2.5 meters high from the water level," said Andrey Agarkov, Deputy Chairman of the regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society in the Republic of Tatarstan.
"The Free Current project is now supported at the federal level. Last week, representatives of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Environmental Protection "Ecology" came to us. Together with them, we inspected the Kazanka River, passed and studied the water area. According to the results of the second stage of the project "Improving the ecological state of rivers and reservoirs of the Republic of Tatarstan", work is underway to determine the causes of pollution of the Kazanka River, so that later it would be possible to build a certain model based on the project and scale such events not only for the republic, but also for the whole of Russia," Deputy Minister of Ecology Egor Tarnavsky stressed.
Let us recall that the Ministry of Ecology is implementing a pilot research project on eco-rehabilitation of water bodies. As part of the first stage, its executor, the Tatarstan Branch of the Russian Geographical Society, carried out geographical research that confirmed the negative impact of diffuse runoff on the river. According to the results of the survey of the catchment area of Kazanka, objects of negative impact (more than 830) were recorded. The second stage of the project is the analysis of the ecological state of the river, the preparation of analytical materials on the assessment of pollution sources and proposals to reduce diffuse runoff into water bodies. The second stage of the project is being implemented with the participation of leading scientific organizations.