Mykolaiv DHCS expect to receive a drainage construction project by the end of the year, which will protect Pivnichnyi from flooding

North microdistrict in Mykolaiv, photo from open sources

The Department of Housing and Communal Services of Mykolaiv expects to receive a project for the construction of a complex of drainage structures to protect the Pivnichnyi microdistrict from flooding by the end of 2024.

Artem Sapozhnyk, deputy director of the department, reported this in a comment to NikVesti.

Currently, multi-apartment buildings are suffering due to flooding in the neighborhood, in particular, their basements are being flooded, he explained.

«In fact, the problem of flooding of this neighborhood did not arise this year or last year, but existed even before the full-scale invasion. There are, in principle, houses that suffer from constant flooding of basements. This situation arose constantly and they tried to solve it locally, but no concrete decisions were made globally,» said Artem Sapozhnyk.

In 2023, he added, residents of flooded houses repeatedly appealed to the department to help them solve this problem. Today, the house at the address of 4h Arkhitektora Starova Street is suffering the most.

«There is constant flooding of the basement, our utility services are constantly pumping out water there, but this is not a solution to the problem,» added the deputy director.

Therefore, last year, the housing and communal services department involved relevant specialists who made a technical report on the causes of flooding in the neighborhood and ways to solve this problem, explained Artem Sapozhnyk.

«The essence of this technical report is to identify the problems and causes of this flooding, as well as possible ways to eliminate them. We received such a report last year, according to which there really is a problem with the flooding of the entire neighborhood. This is due to the existence of three reasons for such flooding. It's the presence of natural sources that cause such flooding, it's the presence of groundwater, and it's the presence, let's say, of leaks in networks or water canals, or regional heat and power,» he explained.

According to the results of the technical report, a complex of drainage facilities should be built in the microdistrict, added the deputy director.

«That is, the construction of a drainage system that would allow water to be diverted from these buildings to avoid flooding. Already in the current year, we drew up the technical terms of reference for the design, according to the recommendations of this report, and announced the corresponding procurement procedure. We expect to receive some project decisions by the end of the current year,» Artem Sapozhnyk explained.

He also added that the cost and timing of the construction of the drainage will be clear only after the relevant project is developed.

«We understand that it will not cost a million hryvnias. We understand that it will not even cost 10 million hryvnias. This is the construction of a drainage system in the entire neighborhood, so accordingly, the amount of funds there will be significant. And taking into account the underfunding of the city budget, we understand the times we live in now, what difficulties we have, so we will definitely look for both internal reserves and the involvement of donor organizations,» said Artem Sapozhnyk.

Flooding of houses, he suggests, could lead to the destruction of houses in the neighborhood.

«We understand what flooding of houses is. When water constantly washes away the foundation of the building, gets into the basement, it definitely does not benefit the building itself. Constant washing of the foundation, of course, leads to a certain, let's say, destruction. I do not want to say this, because we all hope that it does not come to this, but the consequences can be completely different. That is, we understand that the foundation is the basis. If something is wrong with the foundation, it threatens the entire building as a whole. Therefore, we dealt with this problem comprehensively, because it has been going on, as I said at the beginning, for more than one year. And sooner or later it needs to be done,» he added.

Before that, it was reported that the Department of Housing and Communal Services of Mykolaiv announced a tender for the production of a project for the construction of a complex of drainage structures to protect the North district from flooding. These works were estimated at 1 million 500 thousand hryvnias. Subsequently, the new drainage construction on the Pivnichnyi was added to the economic and social development program of Mykolaiv for 2024-2026.

And what about the flooding of Namyv?

In February 2022 , 48 million hryvnias were needed to strengthen the coastline of the Namyv microdistrict, but the city budget did not find the funds for this.

Two years before that, in November 2020, the mayor of Mykolaiv Oleksandr Sienkevych promised that the strengthening of the coastline would begin in 2021.

Journalists showed the results of the destruction of the coastline of the Namyv microdistrict in June 2018. Then the water took away several meters of the beach, and the foundations of high-rise buildings began to sink.

In the same year, residents of Namyv began to sound the alarm that water was washing away the coastline. On this occasion, a meeting was held in Mykolaiv City Hall, where the possible implementation of the coastal fortification project, the improvement of the beach strip and the sanitary condition of the territory were discussed.

In addition, in 2016, the Department of Housing and Communal Services announced tenders for the development of the Namyv shore fortification project worth 416,000 hryvnias. For this, they planned to build an embankment. Then the company «DBK-Proekt», with which the contract was signed and which developed the coastal fortification project, won the bidding.

In October 2019, it became known that the Department of Capital Construction of the Mykolaiv City Council will spend 1 million 472 thousand 340 hryvnias on the development of a project to strengthen the Namiv's coastline. Later, the head of the Ukrainian Design Bureau, Hryhoriy Patoka, explained that the need to develop a second project is related to a change in certain norms in construction.

In December 2023, part of the coastline of the Namyv microdistrict collapsed. The city council announced that they plan to attract international funds for coastal fortification works.