March 21, Minsk / Tatyana Lobas - BELTA /. The cleanest bodies of water in Belarus are rivers and lakes in the Vitebsk region, as reported today to journalists by the head of the Republican Centre for Radiation Control and Environmental Monitoring of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Alexander Stankevich, reports BELTA correspondent. Among the cleanest water bodies of the republic, the specialist also named lakes Naroch, Myastro, Batorino, and Svytyaz. Assessing the overall state of the republic's water bodies, Alexander Stankevich noted that half of the water bodies can be considered conditionally clean. "The most polluted rivers and lakes remain the same from year to year, which is due to the impact of large urban agglomerations," he said. "Where large industrial enterprises are concentrated, the level of surface water pollution is higher; rivers, figuratively speaking, take the brunt from factories and plants." The Svislach River below the discharge of wastewater from the Minsk treatment plant is considered the most polluted river. Also polluted are the Uza River near Gomel, the Berezina River below Borisov, the Plisa River near Zhodino, the Usha River below Molodechno, the Western Dvina River near Novopolotsk, Polotsk, and Verkhnedvinsk, the Yaselda River below Bereza, the Pripyat River below Pinsk, the Western Bug River near Brest, and the Mukhavets River near Kobrin. To improve the situation, a reconstruction of a number of treatment plants is necessary. "This work is being carried out year after year: the volume of wastewater discharged into rivers is decreasing, but the water treatment process itself is slow, and it can be expected to improve in 5-7 years at best," noted Alexander Stankevich. For Belarusian water bodies, a water pollution index is calculated, which takes into account the content of ammonium nitrogen, nitrite nitrogen, oil products, and oxygen in the water. According to this indicator, about half of Belarus's water bodies are classified as conditionally polluted, and the same number as conditionally clean. "But this is a very conditional assessment: there are about 20,000 water bodies in Belarus, and monitoring is carried out only on 87 rivers and 74 lakes. We judge the overall situation only by these main rivers and lakes," the specialist clarified. Nevertheless, the fresh waters of Belarus are much cleaner than the rivers and lakes of Europe. This is due to the fact that the industrial revolution began in Europe 100 years earlier than in our country, and consequently, wastewater from factories was discharged into the rivers and lakes of European countries without any treatment.