Key facts:
- Lake Świętajno Narckie has been drying for many years. The exact reasons for this phenomenon are unknown.
- Some residents say that there is a hotel that takes too much water. Hotel management denies.
- The case went to the prosecutor's office. There is up to eight years in prison for causing damage in nature.
- Expert: A protected, valuable habitat disappears with the lake in front of our eyes. The problem concerns many lakes in Masuria and all over Poland.
- In this matter – as in the lens – you can see how much we do not respect the water that we are starting dramatically.
February 20, 2025, a village of Ski in Masuria. In the village common room – a small building, located on Lake Świętajno Narckie – residents gathered. A room filled to the brim. The meeting with the head of the village and representatives of Polish waters begins. The head of the Jedwabno commune Sławomir Ambroziak says: – The topic of the meeting is the escape of waters that I will describe it from the lake. These positions, as you know, are different, this topic has been discussed over the years.
What “positions” does the head of the village mean? Probably regarding the causes of this “water escape”. As it turns out, there are really a few ideas why this happens, but one is particularly uncomfortable. Some residents say that the drying of the lake is the fault of the Natura Mazur Hotel in the village of Warchała. What does the hotel say? About that in a moment.
Source: Tomasz Słomczyński
The head of the village lists the reasons for drying the lake.
Firstly – climate change. – There is a lack of water everywhere, clearly, there is simply less water – he says.
Secondly – the area is on the border of two river basins: Vistula and Pregola. So in the midwife the highest, from where the water flows the fastest towards two rivers. – If climate change generates a lack of water, it always begins to lack on the borders of the river basin – says the head of the village.
Source: developed own on the basis of Google Maps
Third, as the head of the village claims, the problem is a high level of urbanization of the area on the lake. – Cottages, guesthouses, facilities – lists the head of the village head. However, he does not mention the hotel.
Fourth – drainage, both the one that was introduced “for a German” and the one from the eighties and nineties. She is also to be guilty that the water “escapes from the lake”.
We informed about the drying Lake Świętajno Narckie on tvn24.pl as early as July 2023.
Searching for witches
– An appeal was received, you collected signatures and this is a position, only ladies and gentlemen, I would be far from something that we describe as looking for witches in this situation – says Sławomir Ambroziak, head of the Jedwabno commune.
What is the “search for witches”?
In September 2024, a group of residents and vacationers (owners of summer houses, often year -round) from the town of Ski and Warchały submitted a petition to the head of the Jedwabno commune, in which they demanded urgent actions in connection with the drastic decrease in the water level in Lake Świętajno. The petition was signed by 120 people (the villages of Ski and Warchała are inhabited by about 150 people, not counting the owners of summer houses, who also signed the petition).