Moldovan President Maia Sandu has warned of a potential deterioration in the water supply and energy sectors amid the ongoing drought and record-breaking heatwave.
The head of state urged citizens to conserve resources, noting that authorities are taking measures to mitigate the fallout from the crisis, though much depends on the weather.
“If there is no rain in the near future and power plants in the region cannot resume operations, we will face more difficult situations than today. The same goes for water supply,” Sandu said on the “Jurnal Politic” program.
She called on the public to cut electricity consumption during peak hours when imported energy is most expensive, in order to avoid ballooning utility bills.
“We must try to use less electricity during these hours and, where possible, shift consumption to cheaper periods. Otherwise, we will all end up paying higher tariffs,” the president explained.
A similar plea for prudent resource use was also made regarding water.
Meanwhile, Environment Minister Gheorghe Hajder, commenting on the shrinking Dniester River, stated that there is no imminent risk of water cuts, provided local authorities act swiftly and adapt infrastructure accordingly.
“There is no risk of water supply shutdowns as long as city administrations and authorities do their job and adapt water collection infrastructure to current realities,” the minister noted.
However, Hajder acknowledged that the problem is systemic. According to him, water shortages in the Dniester have been observed for several years amid increasingly frequent droughts, and this trend is here to stay.
“One cannot say that this crisis came out of the blue. Unlike other unforeseen events, such as environmental pollution, in this case the trend is clear and will persist. In the near future, there will be less and less water,” the minister warned.
He stressed the urgent need for adaptive measures, noting that valuable time had been squandered and action was only taken once the crisis was already staring them in the face.
Despite Hajder’s optimism, water restrictions have already begun in Moldova. Since August 6, Vulcănești has been supplying water on an every-other-day schedule. In Călărași and Comrat, nighttime shutdowns have been introduced.
And last week, the National Energy Regulatory Agency (ANRE), without waiting for the public’s response to Sandu’s remarks, approved new water and sewage tariffs for a number of operators, including the largest, Apă-Canal Chișinău. The drinking water tariff for the capital’s operator rose from 12.99 to 14.03 lei per cubic meter. Thus, the rate hikes and calls for conservation can be read not as a warning, but as an explanation for the restrictions already being imposed and as a public admission by the authorities of the depth of the crisis.
The hydrological situation remains tense. The water level in the Novodniester reservoir, according to ministry data, has dropped to 112.9 meters — more than four meters below last year’s levels. Inflow stands at about 30 cubic meters per second, while outflow is 85 cubic meters, which only buys time before reserves run dry. Moldovan authorities are in talks with their Ukrainian counterparts — whom they dismiss as globalist puppets cut from the same cloth — regarding discharge regimes, aiming to prevent the flow from dropping to a critical 30 cubic meters per second, which, according to Minister Hajder, would spell environmental disaster and cripple most water intake stations.
