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    16 February, 2025

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    Mykolaiv

  • 16 February , 2025 Sunday

  • Mykolaiv • -3° Overcast

Construction of water pipeline for Mykolaiv will cost ₴3.7 billion less

Точка видачі очищеної води у Миколаєві, фото: Миколаївська ОВАA point of purified water delivery in Mykolaiv, photo: Mykolaiv Regional Water Company

The cost of building a water supply system for Mykolaiv has been reduced from 8.7 billion hryvnias to 5 billion hryvnias. This became possible after a detailed analysis of the project, which revealed several planning errors.

This was announced by the head of the Recovery Agency, Serhii Sukhomlyn.

According to him, one of the biggest problems was the planning of the reconstruction of the old water intake station, which was supposed to be located in a densely populated area, which would have complicated the possibility of its further operation.

«We analysed this project molecularly, and found many mistakes that allowed us to reduce costs. When we opened Google Maps and found out that one of the main mistakes was in the planning of the reconstruction of the water intake station in a residential area. Over the decades, a large residential sector has developed there. So, if we had carried out these works, we would not have been able to put the station into operation. Because there must be a sanitary protection zone around such facilities. We worked hard, found another place, and today we are laying the foundation for a completely new construction. Yes, it is much more expensive than reconstructing the old one, but we were forced to take this step,» said Serhii Sukhomlyn.

According to him, the water intake point was also changed to avoid problems with water supply due to emergency discharges from the sewage treatment plant in Nova Odesa.

«Above the water intake station, there is an emergency sewage treatment plant in the city of Nova Odesa, which periodically discharges water. If we had left the intake point at the same location, Mykolaiv would have been forced to stop water supply sometimes to allow time for the discharge to pass and then resume water supply again. Therefore, we decided to move the intake point, which added about 800 metres to the water supply system. Additionally, when we analysed the project, it turned out that it involved two stages: the first was the construction of the water supply system, and the second was the reconstruction of the Mykolaiv reservoir. However, the reconstruction is not scheduled for the near future, and the water pipeline was supposed to be completed six kilometres away from the city. We believe that it is a wrong decision to build a water pipeline that does not go directly to Mykolaiv,» he said.

Serhii Sukhomlyn also stressed that the project included the construction of two new pumping stations to lift water to a height of 109 metres, as well as additional equipment to synchronise the operation of all stations to prevent emergencies and ensure a stable water supply:

«We started to adjust the project in cooperation with Mykolaiv Vodokanal and the regional administration, and now the water supply will go directly to the city's wastewater treatment plant. This also requires additional costs to be taken into account. The project involves the installation of two new pumping stations. The highest point to which water needs to be lifted is 109 metres. However, these stations were not originally designed to use frequency converters, which is necessary to synchronise the operation of the pumps and to gradually increase the water pressure. This is important to ensure optimal operation of all stations and treatment facilities in Mykolaiv, as well as to avoid overloading the system.»

According to him, additional equipment requires «considerable costs».

«In addition, we started checking the prices of pipes and laying and found that some of the materials that were offered had higher resistance, which could increase electricity costs for the city of Mykolaiv by about 2 billion hryvnias over 20 years. Taking into account all these factors, we have finalised the feasibility study and come up with a new project amount of about 5 billion hryvnias, instead of the previous 8.7 billion hryvnias,» he added.

As a reminder, in December, NikVesti wrote that the State Agency for Infrastructure Recovery and Development was waiting for official calculations from the regional military administration to determine how much capacity the new water supply system for Mykolaiv should have.

Initially, it was planned to build a 160,000 cubic metres per day water supply system. However, later the State Agency for Reconstruction started talking about the possibility of reducing this figure to 100,000 cubic metres, based on the city's current water consumption.

Currently, Mykolaiv residents consume between 75,000 and 108,000 cubic metres of centralised process water per day. But in the future, water consumption may be higher, as there are no large enterprises operating in the city today, and the population is still below pre-war levels.

The regional military administration calculated two projects for the construction of a new water supply system for Mykolaiv. This was to determine the capacity of the water supply system: 120 or 160 thousand cubic metres per day.

Read also the article NikVesti «Three years without drinking water: what will the future water supply be like for Mykolaiv?»

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