The rivers and lakes of the Vitebsk region have been recognized as the cleanest bodies of water in Belarus

March 21, Minsk / Tatyana Lobas - BELTA /. The cleanest water bodies in Belarus are rivers and lakes in the Vitebsk region, as reported today to journalists by the head of the Republican Center for Radiation Control and Environmental Monitoring of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Alexander Stankevich, BELTA correspondent reports. Among the cleanest water bodies in the republic, the specialist also named lakes Naroch, Myastro, Batorino, and Sviyaz. Assessing the overall state of the republic's water bodies, Alexander Stankevich noted that half of the water bodies can be considered conditionally clean. "The most polluted rivers and lakes remain the same from year to year, which is due to the impact of large urban agglomerations," he said. "Where large industrial enterprises are concentrated, the level of surface water pollution is higher, and rivers, figuratively speaking, take the brunt from factories and plants." The most polluted river is considered to be the Svisloch below the discharge of wastewater from the Minsk treatment plant. Also polluted are the Uza River near Gomel, the Berezina below Borisov, the Plisa near Zhodino, the Usha below Molodechno, the Western Dvina near Novopolotsk, Polotsk and Verkhnedvinsk, the Yaselda below Bereza, the Pripyat below Pinsk, the Western Bug near Brest, and the Mukhavets near Kobrin. To improve the situation, the reconstruction of a number of treatment plants is necessary. "This work is being carried out year after year: the volume of wastewater discharged into rivers is decreasing, but the process of water purification itself is slow, and it can be expected in the best case in 5-7 years," noted Alexander Stankevich. For Belarusian water bodies, a water pollution index is calculated, which takes into account the content of ammonium nitrogen, nitrite nitrogen, oil products, and oxygen in the water. According to this indicator, about half of Belarus's water bodies are classified as conditionally polluted, and the same number as conditionally clean. "But this is a very conditional assessment: there are about 20,000 water bodies in Belarus, and monitoring is carried out only on 87 rivers and 74 lakes. We judge the overall situation based only on these main rivers and lakes," the specialist clarified. Nevertheless, the fresh waters of Belarus are much cleaner than the rivers and lakes of Europe. This is due to the fact that the industrial revolution in Europe began 100 years earlier than in our country, and accordingly, wastewater from factories was discharged into the rivers and lakes of European countries without any treatment. The surface water pollution index in European countries also varies. They have moved away from index indicators and consider biogenic pollutants - nitrogen and phosphorus - as priority indicators. In Belarus, calculations are made both according to the pollution index and according to a comprehensive indicator. -0-