Leading expert of the international public foundation “Rivers without Borders” Evgeny Simonov talks about the environmental problems of the Syr Darya and possible ways to solve them.
The Syr Darya, the largest river in Central Asia , runs through four countries: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, before emptying into the Aral Sea. Azattyk journalist and photographer Petr Trotsenko traveled along the Syr Darya and its tributaries to tell the story of the river’s current state through the stories of ordinary people living on its banks – fishermen, traders, farmers – and spoke with experts who study the problems of the Syr Darya basin and seek solutions.
Evgeny Simonov is an ecologist specializing in the conservation of freshwater ecosystems, the impact of globalization on the environment, and empowering civil society to protect nature across borders. An interview with ecologist Evgeny Simonov is part of the special project “Syr Darya: From Source to Mouth.”
HYDROELECTRIC POWER PLANT ” LOOK LIKE JUST CORRUPTION PROJECTS “
Petr Trotsenko: What, in your opinion, are the biggest problems of the Syr Darya River?
Evgeny Simonov: The most obvious problem with the Syr Darya is that its resources are being colossally overused. The river is used by several countries at once, and there are some agreements between them on how they will jointly manage this river, but they are very fragmentary and insufficient. At the same time, almost no one takes into account the well-being of the river ecosystem. As a result, the Syr Darya is not only the river with the maximum water intake, but also the river with the maximum fragmentation of the river network. Simply put, it contains the lion’s share of the hydraulic structures that exist in the Aral Sea basin. It is important to understand that I mean the entire Syr Darya basin, with all its tributaries. More than 100 large dams have already been built here.
Ecologist Evgeny Simonov
This is a big problem in terms of preserving normal ecosystem processes and in terms of preserving the various living creatures that live in the river. Especially those that migrate. As a result, some of the living organisms that once lived in the Syr Darya River and its tributaries have either already died out or are on the verge of extinction. For many, many years, no one has seen the Syr Darya false shovelnose (a river fish from the sturgeon family that was once found in the basins of the Syr Darya and Kara Darya rivers, with a high degree of probability, this species has completely disappeared. – Ed . ), although this rare sturgeon once migrated along the river. And, naturally, the construction of dams and changes in sediment flow have had a severe impact on it.
Petr Trotsenko: The current state of the Syr Darya River, in particular its over-regulation, are these problems that the countries of Central Asia inherited from the Soviet Union, or did they become fully apparent during the years of independence?
Evgeny Simonov: It varies slightly from country to country, but overall, this problem was created back in the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the Central Asian countries have not learned enough from this, and now we know of more than 70 projects for new large dams in the Syr Darya basin that countries are already trying to build or are planning to build in the near future. That is, the Central Asian states are exacerbating this problem here and now. And among these projects, hydroelectric dams predominate, which, for the most part, simply look like corruption projects.
Kyrgyzstan has the main projects for the development of the Syr Darya basin. There we are talking about the construction of about 40 large and about 80 small dams. The second, of course, is Uzbekistan, which plans to build at least several dozen large dams in this basin. The last thing that struck me was the project of six dams on the Naryn River directly below the old Soviet cascade of hydroelectric power plants in Kyrgyzstan (including the Toktogul hydroelectric power plant and four hydroelectric power plants downstream. – Ed .). Interestingly, this particular section of the river was declared 10 years ago as a key biodiversity area “Sources of the Syr Darya” due to the rare species of fish living there.
The Naryn River in the vicinity of the unfinished Upper Naryn Cascade of hydroelectric power plants. Naryn region of Kyrgyzstan, August 1, 2024
As for Kazakhstan, this country’s ability to build hydroelectric power plants on the Syr Darya itself is, of course, limited due to the prevalence of flat areas. But, on the other hand, in the Arys River basin (a river in the south of Kazakhstan, a right tributary of the Syr Darya. – Ed .), it is also planned to build at least 20 small hydroelectric power plant dams. Moreover, in protected natural areas or in close proximity to them. The situation is even worse on the transboundary Ugam River, where hydroelectric power plants are planned to be built right in the center of the Sairam-Ugam National Park. Unfortunately, Kazakhstan greatly encourages the widespread construction of small, inefficient hydroelectric power plants by providing state guarantees for the purchase of “green energy”.
Petr Trotsenko: And what about the Syr Darya in Tajikistan? As far as I know, there are no plans to build new hydroelectric power plants there.
Evgeny Simonov: The situation in Tajikistan is indeed different. They have two dams – Kairakum and Farkhad, and they are not planning to build anything new. But not because they care about the state of the river, they simply have basically exhausted the resource for hydroelectric development, the Syr Darya itself is completely regulated, and there are no large tributaries suitable for the creation of hydroelectric power plants.
Honey on Wheels: How Nomadic Beekeepers Set Up Apiaries in the Mountains of Kyrgyzstan
THE RIVER HAS BEEN SERIOUSLY ILL FOR A LONG TIME . IS IT POSSIBLE TO ALLEVIATE ITS CONDITION?
Petr Trotsenko: What problems might arise for the Syr Darya due to the construction of a hydroelectric power station in its basin?
Evgeny Simonov: Firstly, the reservoirs silt up and the erosion processes downstream change dramatically. In addition, it is clear that the process of this hydroelectric construction also increases the use of water resources. Accordingly, in certain seasons there is less and less water left in the river itself. But there are areas where there is almost no water, it has all gone into the canal. Look, for example, at the Chirchik River near Tashkent. It flows noticeably for several hours a day, when the Khodjikent Dam (the second most powerful hydroelectric power station in Uzbekistan, located on the Chirchik River. – Ed .) needs to cover the peak loads of Tashkent. I think that the river’s self-healing capacity is becoming very small. All the wastewater still goes into the river, the treatment facilities, to put it mildly, are not good everywhere, and in many places they simply do not exist. Accordingly, the sanitary condition of these waters can be called very poor, and then drainage water from agriculture is discharged into the river with all the ensuing chemical consequences.
I am not a specialist in hydrochemistry, so I simply do not have data on how this looks in different specific areas. I can only say that all this is very problematic and that the Syr Darya has been seriously ill for a long time. If the construction plans that are now being announced for the next 20 years are implemented, then in the entire basin there will not be a single 100-kilometer section of natural river left, including protected areas and places prohibited for construction.
Kairakum hydroelectric power station. Sughd region of Tajikistan, June 17, 2024
Petr Trotsenko: What is the reason for such a large number of hydropower facilities in the Syr Darya basin?
Evgeny Simonov: This is mainly due to the socio-political conditions in each country, the low quality of management and decision-making, and banal corruption. The fact is that at the moment, the creation of hydroelectric facilities is not economically justified. On the one hand, there are already quite a lot of them, and building new ones is very expensive. For example, now the construction of a hydroelectric power station is approximately three to four times more expensive than the construction of a solar power station. But the Syr Darya basin is very sunny. In this regard, even without understanding other features of energy, it is clear that for the production of energy as such, building a hydroelectric power station is four times less profitable. And this is indeed so, while the cost of energy produced at a hydroelectric power station is increasing, and at a solar station it is rapidly becoming cheaper.
So why would you want a hydroelectric power station? It does have its advantages: it can, so to speak, give you energy at times when you don’t have enough from other sources. If you have a reservoir, and if you don’t have, say, wind or sun to generate energy, you can use that water to generate electricity. So, if the authorities were to act rationally, from the point of view of the cheapest and most efficient development of a carbon-free energy system, they would use existing hydroelectric power stations to balance the intermittent output of a large number of cheap new solar and wind stations. Solar stations are best, they are cheaper and less problematic to build.
Considering that huge China with its monstrous overproduction of solar panels is nearby, now is simply a golden time for the construction of renewable energy sources. But, alas, you can’t steal much from a solar power plant, apparently. A solar power plant is a very simple, well-calculated economic modular system, where no surprises await us. If it costs an average of one thousand dollars per kilowatt of capacity, then the difference in the planned construction and actual amounts spent will be plus or minus 10 percent. And a hydroelectric power plant is a bottomless pit for investing money. On average, in the world, from the moment construction begins until the moment of construction, the budget of a hydroelectric power plant project increases by 80 percent, because each hydroelectric power plant is a poorly predictable, unique structure with a lot of unknowns. In the territory of the former USSR, the problem of construction is more acute. For example, the expected total cost of building the Rogun hydroelectric power plant in Tajikistan has grown from three to 11 billion dollars since 2009 and, rest assured, will continue to grow.
Syr Darya near the Farkhad hydroelectric power station. Sughd region of Tajikistan, June 15, 2024
In addition, it was discovered that the output of hydroelectric power plants is very dependent on the climate, on the river flow. In certain seasons and years, there is huge production of electricity, and in others – greatly reduced production, for example, due to drought. Figuratively speaking, if 80 percent of energy production in a country is covered by hydroelectric power plants, this means that the country is ruining its economy and causing suffering to electricity consumers. This is what we see in the example of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where almost every year there is news about how there is not enough energy, not enough water. That is, diversification of sources in the energy system is really needed, but the leadership of these countries, in particular Kyrgyzstan, if we are talking about the Syr Darya basin, is trying to get money from the international community or from businessmen to build new hydroelectric power plants. That is, they knock out huge investment packages to finance dozens of hydroelectric power plants, large and small, wherever physically possible. Including in those places where hydroelectric power plants are strictly prohibited from being built for environmental reasons.
This approach does not cure the energy crisis. But for some reason, mining farms are always tied to hydroelectric power plants in Kyrgyzstan, especially small ones. That is, officially hydroelectric power plants are built to get rid of the electricity deficit, but in reality it turns out that most of the small hydroelectric power plants built, because of which a state of emergency in the energy sector was specially invented in Kyrgyzstan, allowing non-compliance with environmental and other legislation, ultimately work for mining farms.
WHY IS IT DIFFICULT TO MAKE IT BENEFICIAL FOR PEOPLE TO SAVE WATER?
Petr Trotsenko: Another big problem is the irrational use of water resources in agriculture.
Evgeny Simonov: This is the most significant problem in terms of water resource shortages, because the methods of agricultural irrigation in the Syr Darya basin are not much different from what was in the Soviet years and what ultimately led to the death of the Aral Sea.
Of course, the Central Asian countries are making gigantic efforts to somehow reorient this, but I cannot judge how effective their efforts are. In any case, Uzbekistan is bending over backwards to reduce water consumption per unit of production, and in a number of agricultural sectors it is succeeding. But there is still no feeling that this is reducing water consumption in the sector as a whole. Water consumption continues to grow. Of course, the transition to some more efficient technologies and less water-hungry crops is a key issue for survival in the region.
It is also necessary to take into account that agriculture is a conservative industry, which occupies a huge part of the population. This is associated with very subtle socio-economic mechanisms, that is, relatively speaking, you cannot make rash decisions there. It is clear that in authoritarian states it is difficult to create an active public system of water resource management from below. Therefore, it is very difficult to attract the population to your side and make it so that people consciously benefit from saving water.
Agricultural fields in the floodplain of the Syr Darya River. Sughd region of Tajikistan, June 15, 2024
Petr Trotsenko: Finally, I would like to talk about your organization. What is Rivers Without Borders currently doing within the framework of the Central Asian countries, in particular the Syr Darya River basin, and what are the prospects for the Central Asian region for your organization?
Evgeny Simonov: Rivers Without Borders came to Central Asia recently. Now, together with local organizations, we are trying to assess the degree of disturbance of river ecosystems and the possibility of preserving them at least somewhere in the region. We are also developing the necessary environmental and economic measures that would help to somehow manage river basins less destructively. First of all, from the point of view of more meaningful planning of water management infrastructure and a better assessment of the consequences for nature and local communities. That is why we conduct such assessments and try to understand specific projects, in specific basins and in the region as a whole. So far, we have conducted an analysis of a number of sub-basins of Central Asian rivers, and also created a publicly available database to visualize how existing and planned dams relate to different environmental values, which allows us to judge the degree of potential or existing conflict. We are trying to introduce more modern methods of environmental impact assessment, paying special attention to the most valuable natural areas: UNESCO World Heritage sites, reserves, and so on. We also collect on our website all public information on plans for the development and protection of river ecosystems in Central Asia, mainly concerning the construction and operation of dams and reservoirs.
https://dcsh0p71d7ndw.cloudfront.net/a/kazakhstan-ecology-syrdarya-ecologist-evgeniy-simonov-interview/33076595.html
