Testing of the new water treatment plants for Mykolaiv will begin after 15 April, says Sienkevych

Construction of a water treatment plant for Mykolaiv, photo by NikVesti

Testing of the new water treatment facilities for Mykolaiv is set to begin after 15 April 2026.

This was announced by Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych during an open staff meeting on 7 April, according to NikVesti.

«Our situation regarding water supply and drainage is more or less stable and average. Last week, together with Vitalii Kim, we were at the Ministry of Recovery for a meeting regarding the commissioning of our treatment facilities, which are currently under construction. As announced, testing will begin after 15 April, and water utility staff will be invited to the sites for testing,» he said.

The new water treatment facilities are planned to be transferred to the balance sheet of the municipal enterprise Mykolaivvodokanal, said Oleksandr Sienkevych. At the same time, the water intake and water supply network will remain on the balance sheet of the State Water Agency, the mayor clarified.

Read also the article by NikVesti «The state is building new treatment plants, while Mykolaiv insists on modernising them with an EIB loan: what the city stands to gain from this».

When will the new water treatment plants become operational?

The launch of the new water treatment facilities to supply centralised water to Mykolaiv was promised as early as January 2026, but they were planned to be fully operational later. They were built using funds saved during the construction of the new water pipeline.

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Initially, the plan was to take out an EIB loan for the construction of the new water treatment facilities for Mykolaiv, with Denmark providing the remainder as a grant. The project was expected to take several years to complete and was intended to help supply the city with water meeting European standards.

However, Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Reconstruction, later stated that this idea had been abandoned. It was decided to build the new water treatment facilities using state funds — those saved during the construction of the city’s new water pipeline.

However, Mykolaiv’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych, supports the modernisation of the new water treatment facilities using a loan from the European Investment Bank, but believes that the state should pay for it.

Read also the article by NikVesti «When will Mykolaiv get drinking water from the taps and how much will it cost?».

The water pipeline for Mykolaiv. A brief history

It has been more than three years since Russian troops damaged the water pipeline that supplied Mykolaiv with water. Since then, the city of nearly half a million people has been left without a centralised supply of high-quality water.

All this time, Mykolaiv residents have been receiving water from a backup source, which raises many questions about the quality of such water and the salt content in it. The salt water damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city’s water supply network. Borys Dudenko, Director of Mykolaivvodokanal, stated that it is impossible to replace the entire length of the network damaged by the influx of salt water.

For a long time, representatives of the state and local authorities sought options for restoring the drinking water supply in Mykolaiv. A final decision was reached in 2024: a new water pipeline will be laid from Nova Odesa, with funding allocated from the state budget.

The regional reconstruction service even selected contractors who would work on a «design-build» basis. These were three companies, each responsible for one of the three sections of work: Ukrtransmist, Rostdorstroi and Avtostrada. However, both the client and the construction contractor were subsequently changed. The client for the construction of the new water pipeline became the Infrastructure Restoration and Development Service in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and the contractor was the Avtostrada group of companies.

The new water pipeline for Mykolaiv was commissioned on 7 October 2025 — it was connected to the water supply network.