Mykolaiv Water Hub: an innovation center investigating water supply problems was presented in Mykolaiv

On Saturday, June 1, the Mykolaiv Youth Center «Wave» hosted a presentation of the «Mykolaiv Water Hub» innovation center, which investigates the problems of water supply in the city and region.

The center was opened with the support of the public organization of the same name from Germany, writes NikVesti.

«In February 2024, we attended a large conference in Berlin, presented Mykolaiv. We talked about the current problems, after which we signed agreements with a number of organizations in Germany that work in the field of agriculture and water management. They became our key partners, and thanks to them we were able to invite you now,» said the founder of Mykolaiv Water Hub, Anna Montavon.

At the event, the organizers talked about the main areas of work of the water hub. In particular, the innovation center in Mykolaiv is engaged in research in the field of water supply, agro-industry, technologies and innovations. Yes, the organizers are currently working on the creation of the Mykolaiv Water Hub laboratory in Mykolaiv.

«At the moment, we are working on the restoration of a building for a water laboratory, where it will be possible to conduct experiments and develop new ideas. Mykolaiv has the potential to implement new ideas. Now we are working without a building, we are preparing project documentation and the start of construction work is planned for the beginning of 2025. But despite the fact that there is no room yet, we have already found a supplier of the equipment. We work in the following sectors: water, energy, agro-food and digital technologies. Therefore, if you are engaged in research in these fields, we invite you to join us,» said Hanna Montavon.

According to her, Mykolaiv Water Hub also cooperates with Mykolaiv educational institutions. In particular, the innovation center launches various scholarship programs for the youth of the Mykolaiv, Kherson and Odesa regions. Currently, Mykolaiv Water Hub has completed the first scholarship program for schoolgirls and is working on launching a new program with the support of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The start of the new scholarship program is planned for this fall.

Boris Dudenko, director of the Mykolaivvodokanal utility company, was present at the event. He spoke about current projects for the development of the city's water infrastructure. Also, Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych was invited to the Mykolaiv Water Hub presentation.

«I would like to wish everyone success, thank Mykolaiv Water Hub for their work, for believing in Mykolaiv, for helping Mykolaiv, today we don't have enough of that,» Oleksandr Sienkevych said.

Why was there salt water in Mykolaiv in March?

Mykolaiv was left without water for some time after the Dnipro 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 from 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 «Kryvbasshahtzakryttia», 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 gave him permission to do this until March 15, 2024, as evidenced by the relevant order «On the discharge of excess return water into the Ingulets 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 Ingulka should not exceed the maximum permissible concentration (MPC) of 350 milligrams per cubic decimeter (per liter, — note). For this purpose, mine waters must enter Ingulets 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 the enterprises of Kryvbas.

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 main water main to supply Mykolaiv with water will be laid from Nova Odesa. The client of the works will be the Service for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure in the Mykolaiv Oblast.

What about the water in Mykolaiv?

Back in April 2022, Russian troops destroyed the water pipeline through which Mykolaiv received drinking water. Despite constant shelling , the workers of Mykolaivvodokanal tried to restore it, but without success.

In the same year , NikVesti found out how dangerous the water in Mykolaiv taps is for consumption. It turned out that it contains enterococci, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, toxic elements, has an increased content of chlorides, sulfates, dry residue, etc.

More information about what threatens the people of Mykolaiv from the use of «technical» water and what awaits the residents of the city in the future — we laid out in the material «Mykolaiv. The city that holds the defense of the south suffers from thirst.»

In March 2023, the director of Mykolaivvodokanal, Borys Dudenko, announced the possible threat of destruction of the sewage system due to the influence of salt water. According to him, over the past year, the water utility has eliminated more than 1,000 leaks, and after the start of the supply of salty water, the number of accidents per day has increased to 10-15 times.

The European Investment Bank has approved additional credit financing of 20 million euros to improve water supply and drainage in Mykolaiv under the Municipal Infrastructure Development Program of Ukraine.

Before that, it was planned to allocate 1.2 billion hryvnias from the state budget for the restoration of the water supply system in Mykolaiv. Such a step is necessary for the city, because salt water corrodes the pipes and over time the entire water supply system will have to be changed in the city, explained the director of the water supply company, Borys Dudenko.

At the same time, the head of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration, Vitalii Kim, considers his team's decision to supply the city with «technical» water from the Southern Bug after the water main was damaged to be correct.

Currently, the Vodokanal is considering six options for arranging a new water intake site to provide Mykolaiv with drinking water. These searches began in the summer of 2022. At that time, the general director of the water company, Borys Dudenko, talked about the options from where to get the necessary amount of water to fill the city's water supply system and its 24-hour operation.

• the first option is to go higher along the riverbed of the Southern Bug, choose a place with high-quality fresh water, build a water intake station there, lay a pipeline to Mykolaiv;
• the second is to continue pumping water from the Dnipro-Bug estuary, but to install industrial-scale reverse osmosis units. Such installations are very energy-consuming.

Already in August 2023, the department of capital construction and support of development projects of the Mykolaiv RMA announced a tender for the reconstruction of 12 sections of water mains damaged by salt water in different areas of the city for a total amount of 1 billion 348 million hryvnias.

In September 2023, the head of Mykolaiv RMA Vitalii Kim announced the possible deterioration of water quality in the taps of Mykolaiv residents. At the same time, he believes that currently the water from the taps of the people of Mykolaiv is better in terms of quality than «most of the water in Europe».

Currently, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is personally dealing with the issue of restoring the supply of drinking water to Mykolaiv.

In Berlin, on February 19, the Eastern Committee of the German Economy signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Mykolaiv Water Hub.