In Transcarpathia they are stealing silt from the river (VIDEO)

У жителів закарпатського села Великі Ком’яти крадуть річковий мул.

Із дна Боржави незаконно вибирають глей cпеціальним краном, вантажать на КАМази і вивозять за межі села. Хоча ним сільська влада обіцяла заповнити рів біля водозахисної дамби, виритий на ділянках селян півтора року тому.

The resident of Transcarpathian village Velyki Komiaty are being robbed of the river silt.

Using the special crane the thieves illegally extract clay from the bottom of Borzhava, load it on KAMAZs, and take outside the village. Although the village authorities promised to use this clay to fill the ditch near the water control dam, dug on the villagers’ land year and a half ago.

Earth was extracted to extend the old dam, which was built here during the Soviet era. So the villagers from morning to night block the way from the river to the central road and do not let the trucks with clay go through.

The house of a 59-year-old Mariya Symotyuk is a few meters from the dam. Each rain destroys it, and the dam can not withstand the onslaught of big water in the riverbed. If the ditch is filled the dam will be stronger.

The dam prevents floods because previously the villagers’ land was flooded twice a year. And they do not want to relive the horror of the water disaster.

Neither the chairman nor the deputy chairman of the village council of Velyki Komiaty can be found. Who extracts the silt from the bottom of the Borzhava river is unknown. Drivers of the crane and trucks fled from journalists to the bush. Outraged villagers called the police.

The district inspector never showed up before protesters. But after a call to the police department all trucks dissapeared from the river bank. Environmentalists also say that uncontrolled excavation of silt adversely affect the river and the environment.

The thieves sell the river silt in the neighboring district at 800 UAH per one truckload – the villagers say. Because clay is a good organic fertilizer rich in potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus, which increases soil fertility.

And the residents of Velyki Komiaty are not against sanctioned cleaning of the Borzhava river bed. But only after the ditch near the dam has been filled.