Kim responded to Sienkevych's statement about the suspension of the water pipeline construction project: «The financial issue is being resolved, the mayor will not help in any way»

The head of Mykolayiv RMA Vitalii Kim denied the statement of the mayor of Mykolaiv Oleksandr Sienkevych regarding the suspension of the project on the construction of a water pipeline for the supply of drinking water to the city.

He said this in a video on his Telegram channel, addressing the city mayor, NikVesti reports.

As you know, the other day the mayor of Mykolaiv said that the project of building a new water pipeline to supply drinking water to Mykolaiv stopped after the government dismissed Oleksandr Kubrakov and Mustafa Naiiem from their positions.

However, Vitalii Kim says that the project is at the stage of finding financing, and the mayor cannot help at this time. In addition, according to the head of OVA, the project, on the contrary, is moving faster and is already at the final stage.

«The mayor made a comment that something is slowing down there. No, Oleksandr, we communicate, we talk, the financing issue is being resolved. The amount is large, most likely, it will be the state budget and help from partners. The city mayor can't help here. It (meaning the project, — note) is currently at the stage of finding sources from which it will be financed. It has accelerated and is now on its way out,» Vitalii Kim addressed the mayor of Mykolaiv.

It will be recalled that in May, Mayor Sienkevych expressed hope that the dismissal of Oleksandr Kubrakov from the post of Minister of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure will not affect the plans to build a new water main for the city.

Mustafa Naiiem was also dismissed in June. However, Nayem himself later responded to the Ministry of Finance's accusation that the Agency had not provided the project with a water pipeline in the Mykolaiv region, noting that at the time of his dismissal, the terms of reference for the procurement procedure were already being prepared.

During the briefing on July 11, answering the questions of NikVesti, Vitalii Kim said that Mykolaiv has not yet received funds from the government for the construction of a new water supply, because the amount has changed there. He planned to present the updated estimate of the project for consideration by the government.

Earlier, the head of Mykolayiv RMA Vitalii Kim told journalists that thanks to the optimization of the estimate, about 3 billion hryvnias are needed for the construction of the water pipeline. Although earlier it was about the amount from 4 to 8 billion hryvnias.

It is worth noting that in two years the government did not allocate funds for the construction of a new water pipeline to provide Mykolaiv with quality water. What do the changes to Cabinet Resolution No. 566, approved on April 29, 2024, indicate, NikVesti writes. At the same time, in 2023, the government allocated 8.2 billion hryvnias for the construction of new water mains in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and this year — 5.1 billion hryvnias.

During the conference in Berlin, the first vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Korniienko, answering the questions of NikVesti, stated that the lack of drinking water in Mykolaiv is one of the biggest problems in Ukraine, which the state must solve in the near future.

The head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, David Arakhamiia, believes that the funds for the construction of a new water pipeline for Mykolaiv should be allocated from the reserve fund of the state budget.

And have they already built a water main for Dnipropetrovsk Oblast?

More than a million residents of Dnipropetrovsk Region, who were left without water as a result of the blowing up of the Kakhovka HPP by Russian troops, did not have to wait for a solution to the problem for several years. In order to return centralized water supply to the region, almost from the first days of the tragedy, the State Agency for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure, in cooperation with international partners, began working on its largest project.

Already in December 2023, 93% of the new water supply was ready, and water supply was restored to some of the settlements. The agency said that more than 1,200 people and hundreds of pieces of equipment were working on the construction around the clock in three shifts. It is about two main water pipelines: «Inhulets — Pivdenne», «Marhanets — Nikopol — Pokrov, Khortytsia (DVS2) — Tomakivka».

These are three branches of aqueducts with a total length of almost 150 kilometers, a pipe length of 300 kilometers and a water intake from the Dnipro and Ingulets rivers. The Restoration Agency said that the link «Inhulets — Pivdenne» will provide water to the residents of Kryvyi Rih, and «Marganets — Nikopol — Pokrov» and «Khortytsia (DVS2) — Tomakivka — Marganets» — to the residents of Kryvyi Rih, Nikopol, Marhanets, Tomakivka, Marianska and Pokrovske community of Dnipropetrovsk region.

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 Dnieper 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 enterprise «Kryvbasshahtozakryttia», 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, which, 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 Inhulets 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 Inhulets 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 about his scandalous decision to allow the discharge of mine waters to the state-owned enterprise «Kryvbasshahtozakryttia» 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 New 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 Mykolaivka's 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 Mykolaiv residents 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.