The culvert in Soliany was repaired for ₴1 million with a 50-year warranty

Elimination of an accident on a culvert in Mykolaiv. Photo: Mykolaiv City Council

In Mykolaiv, water supply to the Solyani, Pivnichnyi, and Ternivka neighbourhoods has been restored after an accident on the culvert. In total, about one million hryvnias were spent on repair work.

This was announced by Oleksandr Zhak, head of the company «VIK-Tehnolohii», which carried out emergency repair work together with the municipal enterprise Mykolaivvodokanal.

As is known, due to an accident on the water pipeline on 11 January, water supply was suspended in the Soliany, Pivnichnyi and Ternivka neighbourhoods of Mykolaiv. Special trolleybuses were used to provide people with water.

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Mykolaivvodokanal said that the culvert's service life had already expired, so it needed more than just simple repairs. According to preliminary estimates, it was necessary to replace about 190 metres of pipe with a diameter of 350 millimetres at the bottom of the river.

Later, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych announced that they planned to «patch up» the culvert for 4 million hryvnias. However, he said that this would only be a temporary solution to the problem.

Oleksandr Zhak noted that 260 metres had been repaired in almost two days using the «pipe-in-pipe» method. The new pipe can supply up to 650 cubic metres of water per hour. Actual consumption is approximately 140 litres per person, or about 6,000 cubic metres per day for all residents. There is a reservoir to level out peak loads.

According to him, the new pipe will be sufficient for current needs, since the warranty period for the pipe in accordance with state standards is 50 years, and the estimated service life is 100 years.

«And here's another interesting fact. The total cost of the work, including materials (although the pipe, as far as we know, was purchased with donor funds), amounted to about one million hryvnia. I think that in our situation, there is no need to spend more money on this culvert,» wrote Oleksandr Zhak.

Emergency work was carried out in the city to renovate the old pipe, which is located at a depth of about 10 metres under a layer of silt. The complete reconstruction of the new culvert across the Inhul River is estimated at almost 47 million hryvnias.

It should be noted that in 2020, a water pipeline was laid under the Southern Bug River in the Varvarivka microdistrict, which was supposed to provide drinking water to three thousand houses. The construction cost 77 million hryvnias, but two years after its launch, only 20 households were connected to the system.

According to Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych, the construction of the culvert in the Varvarivka neighbourhood was not a waste of budget funds. At the same time, he explains the unpopularity of the water pipeline among residents of the Varvarivka neighbourhood by the quality of water currently supplied to the network due to problems with the water pipeline in the city.

The head of the company «VIK-Tehnolohii» Oleksandr Zhak stated that since 2017 he had been offering to repair the emergency culvert in the Soliany neighbourhood, but for several years he was unable to obtain a contract.

What is the situation with water in Varvarivka?

Construction of the culvert for the Varvarivka neighbourhood began in September 2019, commissioned by the Housing and Utilities Department of the Mykolaiv City Council. Construction of the culvert to Varvarivka began in 2019, funded by a subsidy from the state budget — 19.5 million hryvnias were spent. To complete the construction of the infrastructure facility, the Mykolaiv City Council requested funding in 2020 from the State Fund for Regional Development in the amount of 36 million hryvnias.

Another 21 million hryvnias were allocated for the implementation of the project from the Mykolaiv city budget to complete the construction of the culvert and provide the microdistrict with a water supply system in 2020.

On 5 November 2020, a ceremony was held to launch the water supply system to the Varvarivka neighbourhood.

On 27 June 2021, large cracks appeared in the water supply system. After that, workers began to patch up the cracks in the culvert in the Varvarivka neighbourhood.

Almost three years after the completion of construction, in August 2023, the culvert in the Varvarivka microdistrict was put into operation. It was transferred to the balance sheet of the municipal enterprise Mykolaivvodokanal.