Five dams in the counties of Bacau, Vrancea, Salaj, Gorj and Bihor will be rehabilitated and modernised urgently, through a funding of over 184.1 million lei,Minister of Environment, Waters and Forests Mircea Fechet announced in a post published on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
„I have signed the financing contract for a project dedicated to adapting hydrotechnical accumulations to climate change, which we are implementing within the Water Management Component of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). This is a project worth over 184.1 million lei, through which we bring modern, digital solutions that allow us to increase the efficiency with which we manage these dams, which will undergo an extensive rehabilitation process over the next 19 months. The goal is to increase the safety of water supply for the population and, at the same time, to reduce the flood risk, especially given that, as we all see, extreme weather events caused by climate change are increasing in intensity and frequency. I am pleased that, especially in the case of the Belci Dam in Onesti (Bacau), we have managed to unblock an investment that no one has found a solution for in the last 34 years,” Fechet pointed out.
According to the official, Belci is the first earth dam in the country, built in the 1960s, with a volume of approximately 5 million cubic metres, and has been waiting for funding for a long time. The safety of tens of thousands of Onesti residents depends on this accumulation.
„In 1991, when rainfall of 95.6 l/sqm was recorded in the Tazlau River basin, a strong flood broke the dam, and an entire neighborhood in the municipality of Onesti (Slobozia) was destroyed. Over 30 people lost their lives, and more than 250 households were swept away by the waters. I want such tragedies not to happen again. Water is, as you know, a priority of my mandate, and this means that we are also accelerating investments that ensure the safety of people’s lives and property in flood-prone areas,” said the minister.
AGERPRES
