The government has charted a program to protect the island

Crimean Vice Premier Hennady Babenko told journalists that the interdepartmental Tuzla coast protection commission set up on instructions of Crimean Premier Serhiy Kunitsyn in the heat of the conflict had drawn up and forwarded to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine a state program to protect this island in the Strait of Kerch. According to Mr. Babenko, although the program is still being studied, a five-unit 500-Kw wind power station is being built on the island to complement the existing diesel-powered plant that consumes too much fuel. This station is to be commissioned in April. The island protection program is expected to be approved by the government of Ukraine by the end of January this year. The program includes three stages. At the first stage, in 2003-2004, it is planned to build a road and stop the shore erosion caused by a strong current that changed its speed and direction in the Strait of Kerch after Russia had built a causeway. The vice premier thinks the second stage will show the greatest interest. It is planned to build Ukraine’s first wave or tidal power plant on Tuzla in 2005-2006. Technologies like this are so far employed in Japan and the US only. Moreover, these facilities will perform at least three functions. First, they will allow Ukrainian experts to test new electricity generating technologies and use the experience gained in the country’s other regions. Secondly, the power plants’ design will allow them to perform several functions simultaneously, such as protecting the island from the ruinous effect of waves because the plants will in fact be large hydraulic structures resembling lateral dams, and generating electricity for domestic and industrial heat production. The program’s third stage calls — in compliance with President Leonid Kuchma’s instruction to Transport Minister Heorhy Kyrpa — for digging a navigable passage between Tuzla Island and the Russian dam by 2010. As Mr. Babenko noted, this project’s overall cost — now estimated at 63 to 93 million hryvnias — will depend on which of the two construction options is chosen.

The commission also continues to consider other proposals for protecting and reinforcing Tuzla. For example, the Crimean Republic Committee for Ecology and Natural Resources suggests organizing a nature preserve on the island. “We would like to see a preserve there,” Kostiantyn Belousov, the committee deputy chairman, told journalists. He said the project was still on the drawing board because different ways of funding are being discussed. A preliminary estimate shows the preserve will take about UAH 2.5 million to be established. The preserve project may well become part of the overall Tuzla protection program. The idea of a preserve came up because the island has some lakes where migrating birds, including storks and white herons, make a stopover on the way from the Caucasus to the Crimea and vice versa. It is planned so far to set up a preserve on the island itself, but Mr. Belousov says the preserve would be far more effective if it also included a part of the coastal water now used by animals and birds for nutritional and breeding purposes.