Sienkevych signed an agreement with the EBRD for €25 million for water supply for Mykolaiv in Berlin

Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych signed an agreement between «Mykolaivvodokanal» and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to provide almost 25 million euros to restore the city's water supply.

The relevant agreement was signed by the mayor on June 11 during the Conference on the Restoration of Ukraine in Berlin, the correspondent of NikVesti reports.

It is about 10 million euros of loan funds from the EBRD and almost 15 million euros of grants, of which: 5 million euros from the Eastern European Partnership Fund for Energy Efficiency and the Environment and 9.8 million euros from the Special Crisis Response Fund of the EBRD.

Before that, it was reported that the allocated funds would be directed to the reconstruction of the Dnipro-Mykolaiv water pipeline, however, as the director of the enterprise explained, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will give recommendations on the distribution of funds already after the signing of the contract. Initially, the funds are planned to be directed to the reconstruction of water treatment facilities and the restoration of water supply networks in the city. In a comment to NikVesti, Borys Dudenko specified that the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration, which implements the project to update the water supply network, focused only on the replacement of main networks, while the company expects to direct additional grant and loan funds to other networks. Such a step is necessary for the city, as salt water corrodes the pipes and over time the entire water supply system will have to be changed in the city, the director of the water supply company, Borys Dudenko, explained earlier.

«We started work on this loan at the end of 2022 - the beginning of 2023, so it included the restoration of the water intake on the Dnipro River and the restoration of networks. Time has passed and these components will be changed. But all these funds will be directed to the restoration of water supply in Mykolaiv. According to the bank's proposal, we will make changes after we sign the contract,» he said.

The total estimated cost of the project is 33 million euros, which is equal to almost 1.5 billion hryvnias, of which:

• 10 million euros — credit funds;
• EUR 5 million — a grant from the East European Partnership Fund for Energy Efficiency and the Environment;
• EUR 9,800,000 — a grant from the EBRD Special Crisis Response Fund;
• EUR 8,200,000 is a subvention from the state budget of Ukraine for the restoration of the Dnipro-Mykolaiv water intake facilities.

Why was there salt water in Mykolaiv in March?

Mykolaiv was left without water for some time after the Dnieper aqueduct was damaged. Later, salt water from the estuary was introduced into the network, and today the city receives river water. In terms of its quality, it is inferior to the Dnipro river, but it is still better than the Lyman river. In this way, almost half a million people in Mykolaiv receive better quality technical water in their homes, says the explainer of NikVesti «Why is the water salty again in Mykolaiv? We explain.»

But since the beginning of March 2024, the people of Mykolaiv noticed that the quality of the water in the taps deteriorated — it became saltier and took on a more yellow color than usual.

The municipal enterprise «Mykolaivvodokanal» commented on the deterioration of the quality of water in the citizens' taps only on March 15. They explained that the deterioration of water quality «is caused by natural and man-made factors», and also added that «there are no simple and quick solutions to such complex issues, but work in this direction continues».

It turned out that the state-owned enterprise «Kryvbasshahtzakrytye», which is located upstream of the place of water intake for Mykolaiv, dumped water from its sumps into the river. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine granted him permission to do this until March 15, 2024, as evidenced by the relevant order «On the discharge of excess return water into the Inhulets River». In fact, we are talking about water that, after use with the help of technical facilities, enterprises return to rivers in the form of sewage, mine, quarry or drainage water.

However, the main condition of this permission from the Cabinet of Ministers is that the enterprise must comply with individual regulations. That is, the content of chlorides (salts, — note) in Inhulka should not exceed the maximum permissible concentration (MPC) of 350 milligrams per cubic decimeter (per liter, — note). For this purpose, mine waters must enter Inhulets together with fresh water, which would dilute them and reduce the percentage of mineralization. However, it turned out that this indicator was exceeded more than 4 times.

Unlike the Mykolaiv state eco-inspectors, the Dnipro inspectors did not see an excess of chloride (salt) content in Inhulka during the discharge of mine water into the river by Kryvbas enterprises.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reacted to the latest story of NikVesti regarding his scandalous decision to allow the discharge of mine water to the state-owned enterprise «Kryvbasshahtozakrytye» into the river from which Mykolaiv receives its water. He held a meeting at which he «instructed to ensure the uninterrupted supply of technical water to Mykolaiv.»

And in April 2024, the government of Ukraine allocated 125.5 million hryvnias for the water supply of Mykolaiv.

Later, it became known that a new water main to supply Mykolaiv with water will be laid from New Odesa. The client of the works will be the Service for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure in Mykolaiv Oblast.