In Bryukhovychi, at 64 Nezalezhnosti Ukrayiny Street, an entrepreneur who rents a lake partially drained the reservoir without any permission from the city. The water flooded neighbouring gardens.
The people contacted the Lviv community office in Bryukhovychi and officials of the Lviv City Council arrived at the scene. Law enforcement officers are also investigating the grounds for the businessman’s actions.
Dmytro Vozniuk, a resident of Bryukhovychi, was one of the first to notice the large amount of water in the gardens and at first thought it was an accident.
“I saw that all the plots were flooded. The water was coming from the forest from 4pm to 9pm. I called the water utility in Bryukhovychi to ask if there was an accident. In the evening, I was told that they were probably draining the so-called “Plotiki” lake. The water was released suddenly, and it flooded people’s gardens.
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“There is a 250-diameter pipe on the moat, and it was working continuously from 4 to 11 pm. There was so much water!” says Dmytro.
In the morning, the residents contacted the Lviv community office in Bryukhovychi, and a commission of Lviv city council officials immediately arrived at the site.
They found out that it was a leased land plot of a legal entity, and that the lake was also leased.
“When we arrived at the site, we found that a ditch had been dug from the lake towards the railway, through which water was flowing out of the reservoir, leading to flooding of the surrounding areas.
According to the tenant’s representative, because the water level in the lake had risen, the land plot was flooded, so they dug an emergency ditch to lower the water level. The Lviv City Council was not notified of this, so we had no opportunity to approve or deny such actions,” said Taras Kubay, Director of the City Planning Department of the Lviv City Council.
A commission consisting of representatives of the State Control Department, the Department of Ecology and the Department of Land Resources will establish the legality of the tenant’s actions. The police were also called to the scene and recorded the entrepreneur’s actions.
“The tenant’s representative has previously agreed to provide all the documents and explanations. We have now agreed that the ditch will be buried to prevent repeated flooding of the residents, but only after the law enforcement agencies have recorded the construction work that has been carried out here,” added Taras Kubay.
The tenant caused environmental damage as a result of the water release, according to the city’s Department of Ecology and Natural Resources.
“The water level was lowered, which in itself is harmful to the environment. It’s hard to say exactly how much water was lowered, because the lake is not absolutely flat, so it can be 60 cm somewhere and 70 cm somewhere. It’s also hard to say how many cubic metres of water flowed out. But this was done without any permits, which is a violation of water and land laws. Such works should be regulated by the relevant services, in particular the Western Bug and Syan River Basin Water Resources Management, which issue discharge permits,” said Halyna Mykytchak, Head of the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources at Lviv City Council.
Construction work is currently underway near the lake. According to the Department of Urban Development, this construction was approved by the Bryukhovychi village council before Bryukhovychi joined the Lviv territorial community. Therefore, the city council will also check the permits that the tenant promised to provide to officials.