Narva horticultural associations hoping for help against spring floods
Narva's horticultural associations are hoping to receive help from the city government to battle a flood. The government promises to fix the drainage ditches, but until then, the gardeners are trying to beat the excess water themselves.
There are about 6,000 summer houses near Narva and most of them are suffering from flooding.
Floods occur every four or five years are winters and are caused by heavy snowfall and spring rain showers which turn the summerhouses built on swampy areas become frog ponds, ETV's current news show "Aktuaalne kaamera" reported on Monday.
"It's very sad that we just managed to plant the tomatoes and now they are under water. We pump water out of the ditch but it's still full of water," Jelena Rogatsova said.
Even buckets are used in the fight against excess water.
"Like this, manually, there's nothing to do about it. If only the ditches were cleaner, but they're full of trash," Vladimir Ivanov said.
There are a lot of drainage ditches in the Kudru village horticultural associations and there is water flowing in some of them. The gardeners have tried to clean the ditches on their own, but this has not helped.
"It should be done according to a plan. When we try to get rid of the water somewhere the water is higher and somewhere else it's lower, it doesn't help with the land improvement," chairman of the association Inna Metljajeva said.
The Narva City government will help the gardeners, but no fast solution has been offered.
"We are all drowning because the drainage system can't cope with the amount of water. Our proposal is to transfer the water to another ditch to direct it to the river. How could it be done, professionals have to say," city council's head of association committee Viktor Semarin said.
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Editor: Roberta Vaino