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world news Diasabra 13 augustus 2022

European drought dries up rivers, kills fish, shrivels crops

(AP) — Once, a river ran peratures speed up evapora- level will keep decreasing
through it. Now, white tion, thirsty plants take in as the (water) volume goes
dust and thousands of more moisture and reduced down,” Couasné said. “These
dead fish cover the wide snowfall in the winter limits are species that will gradually
trench that winds amid supplies of fresh water avail- disappear.”
rows of trees in France’s able for irrigation in the sum-
Burgundy region in what mer. Europe isn’t alone in the Jean-Pierre Sonvico, the re-
was the Tille River in the crisis, with drought condi- gional head of the federation,
village of Lux. tions also reported in East said diverting the fish to oth-
Africa, the western United er rivers won’t help because
From dry and cracked reser- States and northern Mexico. those waterways also are af-
voirs in Spain to falling water fected.
levels on major arteries like As he walked in the 15-me-
the Danube, the Rhine and ter (50-foot) wide riverbed in “Yes, it’s dramatic because
the Po, an unprecedented Lux, Jean-Philippe Couasné, what can we do? Nothing,”
drought is afflicting nearly chief technician at the local he said. “We’re waiting, hop-
half of Europe. It is damaging Federation for Fishing and ing for storms with rain, but
stream can bring unusually
farm economies, forcing wa- Protection of the Aquatic En- storms are very local so we Current conditions result hot air to Europe from North
ter restrictions, causing wild- vironment, listed the species can’t count on it.”
fires and threatening aquatic of fish that had died in the from long periods of dry Africa, leading to prolonged
weather caused by changes in periods of heat. The reverse
species. Tille. The European Commis-
sion’s Joint Research Cen- world weather systems, said is also true, when a polar vor-
There has been no signifi- “It’s heartbreaking,” he said. ter warned this week that meteorologist Peter Hoff- tex of cold air from the Arctic
cant rainfall for almost two “On average, about 8,000 li- drought conditions will get mann of the Potsdam Insti- can cause freezing conditions
tute for Climate Impact Re-
far south of where it would
months in the continent’s ters (2,100 gallons) per sec- worse and potentially affect
western, central and south- ond are flowing. ... And now, 47% of the continent. search near Berlin. normally reach.
ern regions. In typically rainy zero liters.”
Britain, the government of- Andrea Toreti, a senior re- “It’s just that in summer we Hoffmann said observations
feel it the most,” he said. “But in recent years have all been
ficially declared a drought In areas upstream, some trout searcher at the European
across southern and central and other freshwater species Drought Observatory, said actually the drought builds at the upper end of what ex-
England on Friday amid one can take shelter in pools via a drought in 2018 was so up across the year.” isting climate models pre-
dicted.
of the hottest and driest sum- fish ladders. But such sys- extreme that there were no
mers on record. tems aren’t available every- similar events for the last 500 Climate change has less- The drought has caused
where. years, “but this year, I think, ened temperature differ-
And Europe’s dry period is it is really worse.” ences between regions, sap- some European countries
expected to continue in what Without rain, the river “will ping the forces that drive the to restrict water usage, and
experts say could be the worst continue to empty. And yes, For the next three months, jet stream, which normally shipping is endangered on
drought in 500 years. all fish will die. ... They are “we see still a very high risk brings wet Atlantic weather the Rhine and the Danube
trapped upstream and down- of dry conditions over West- to Europe, he said. rivers.
Climate change is exacerbat- stream, there’s no water ern and Central Europe, as
ing conditions as hotter tem- coming in, so the oxygen well as the U.K.,” Toreti said. A weaker or unstable jet

Poland: ‘Huge’ amounts of chemical waste dumped into river

(AP) — Poland’s prime Stolzenberg said German au-
minister said Friday that thorities were in contact with
“huge amounts of chemi- their Polish counterparts to
cal waste” were probably get further information about
dumped intentionally the situation and to provide
into the Oder River, which any assistance requested.
runs along the border
with Germany, causing Poland has deployed soldiers
environmental damage so to help clean up the Oder and
severe it will take the river an association of fishermen in
years to recover. Zielona Gora, a city in west-
ern Poland, said Friday it was
Tons of dead fish have been suspending fishing in the riv-
seen floating or washed er due to the contamination.
ashore on the Oder’s banks
over the past two weeks but According to Morawiecki,
the issue only erupted into a video on Facebook. “We will mals such as beavers. cials complained that Poland the scale of the pollution is
major scandal late this week. not let this matter go. We will failed to honor an interna- so large that it may take years
not rest until the guilty are Przemyslaw Daca, head of tional treaty by not notifying for the river ecosystem to re-
Prime Minister Mateusz severely punished.” Polish Waters, the national them immediately about the cover.
Morawiecki, whose govern- water management authority, possible contamination of
ment is under pressure for its German media have reported said Thursday that 10 tons of the river. A boat captain first Defense Minister Mariusz
handling of what appears to that the poison is mercury, al- dead fish have been removed alerted German authorities Blaszczak announced Thurs-
be a major environmental ca- though this has not been of- from the river. about the dead fish on Aug. 9. day that soldiers and reserv-
tastrophe, vowed that Polish ficially confirmed. ists were being deployed to
authorities would hold the “This shows that we are deal- “We know that the chain of help remove pollutants from
perpetrators to account. Investigations are underway ing with a gigantic and outra- reporting that’s envisaged the river, which is known as
to determine the cause of the geous ecological catastrophe,” for such cases didn’t work,” the Oder in German and the
“Huge amounts of chemical mass fish die-off. Huge num- he said at a news conference Christopher Stolzenberg, a Odra in Polish and Czech. It
waste were probably dumped bers of dead fish were first near the river where officials spokesperson for Germany’s flows north for hundreds of
in the Oder River with full spotted near the southwest- faced angry residents. Federal Environment Minis- miles from the Oder Moun-
awareness of the risks and ern Polish town of Olawa in try, told reporters in Berlin. tains of Czechia and empties
consequences,” he said in a late July, along with dead ani- Meanwhile, German offi- into the Baltic Sea.