Moldovan specialists and Romanian partners are discussing the possibility of gradually raising the overflow from the Costesti-Stinca reservoir, from 42 to 60 cubic meters per second. “It is a measure needed to protect the area in case of floods. We must gradually increase the volume of poured out water as there may appear ice bridges on the river,” deputy head of Moldova’s Water Agency Mihail Penkov told the press. Earlier, Ion Friptu, former senior engineer at the Bender fluvial port and marine flotilla expert, has told Info-Prim Neo that this year we will witness the most serious wave of floods in the last few years. The geographic position of Moldova favors this calamity that takes place once in two years. According to him, the authorities should be concerned about the latest heavy snowfalls. Earlier, the rivers were cleaned by extracting sand and clay. This helped maintain a deep riverbed and the rivers did not flood. Now they extract only a small quantity of sand and this is not enough. Mihail Penkov assured that this winter’s precipitation did not exceed the norm. “The layer of snow in the Carpathians must be at most 42 cm. According to the latest data, the layer is now 38 cm. Thus, the precipitation will not cause floods. As to the extraction of sand from rivers, such acts influence insignificantly the rivers’ flow capacity,” he stated. He also said that the snow does not melt so quickly to cause problems. Even if it is warmer and conditions appear for snow to melt, the water will anyway freeze at night and there will be no large-scale floods. Mihail Penkov stressed that the most serious floods in Moldova happened in 1969, 1980, and 1998 and thus the average flood occurrence period is 10-15 years. “The next floods were in 2008 and 2010, but this is a natural phenomenon that cannot be predicted,” he said In a meeting of Prime Minister Vlad Filat and representatives of district authorities on February 14, the deputy head of Rascani district Alexandru Cheptanaru said that the level of water in the Costesti-Stanca reservoir is now 86 m, while the normal level is 90.8 m. The reservoir can store about 800 million cubic meters of water, but the volume of accumulated water may be larger. The authorities buy sacks that will be filled with sand and used to reinforce and raise the walls of the reservoir. The floods of 2010 affected 13,000 people from 85 settlements. 3 100 persons were evacuated – 2 300 from Hincesti district and 800 from Cantemir district. Hounds of hectares of crops, orchards and meadows, seven levees and about 200 kilometers of road were damaged.