Legal regime of lakes to be established based on new provisions in Moldova

Chisinau, 5 October /MOLDPRES/ - The cabinet today approved a notification to the draft law for the amendment of normative acts, submitted as legislative initiative, which will ensure the regulation and clearing up of the determination of lakes and water basins within the process of massive delimitation. The goal is to establish the legal regime of the water objects, as well as avoid litigations as to the illegal use of water basins, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.    

The amendments were made after, in the last years, more and more often the problem had appeared as to the determining the belonging of lakes and water basins within the process of massive delimitation of public assets. Therefore, the proposals on amendment bring clarity in establishing the belonging of water bodies – either the state, or local public authorities, for their adequate and fair management.     

Earlier, the right of user of the grounds from waters’ fund for fishing belonged exclusively to the owners of hydro-technical constructions, who were in charge of their maintenance and consolidation, in line with the legislation. Thus, although the owner had title only to the hydro-technical construction, he was using also the water basin and the excessive exploitation led to the sticking in mud and decrease in the water level. The new amendments establish that the owner of the hydro-technical construction will be able to use the adjacent ground based on the payment on lease paid to the owner and will be able to use the water on various purposes, only based on the environmental permit.

The cabinet also approved amendments to the Land Code, the law on the fishing fund, fishing and fish breeding, law on the administration and denationalization of public property, as well as to the law on the delimitation of public property. There are 6,763 reservoirs and lakes in Moldova. More than 80 per cent of the lakes and reservoirs which have regulations are assigned to be used by private people or legal entities.   

Photo: Government