The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources announced on Friday the winners of the campaign “Clean Rivers from Village to Village”, launched on World Water Day on March 22, Info-Prim Neo reports. The campaign aimed to encourage authorities from Moldova’s villages to clean up the rivers traversing their territories and the belts of trees along these rivers. The idea, which can be derived from the title of the campaign, was that each mayor’s office cleans the portion of the river that runs through the village, taking the cleanup efforts to the point where the administration of the village downstream steps in, and so on, from village to village. In some villages, authorities became so enthusiastic as to put up signs informing people, probably for the first time, how a certain river is named. The commission that judged the cleanup efforts held that the best job was done in the municipality of Balti and in the districts of Criuleni, Donduseni, Ocnita and Stefan-Vod, where the rivers were cleaned up along their entire courses. To reward the winners, the Ministry allocated from the National Ecological Fund a total of 465,000 lei in prizes. According to Minister Violeta Ivanov, the campaign “Clean Rivers from Village to Village” will continue in 2009, as well, and the prize money will double. In many Moldovan villages cleaning up rivers is not just a question of beautification, but also a serious environmental and public health concern. Much of rural Moldova lacks sewer systems and waste management solutions, so villagers often dispose of their household refuse near or into rivers and smaller streams of water.