Reconstruction of water treatment facilities to launch a new water supply system in Mykolaiv will cost the state ₴70 million

The head of the State Agency for Reconstruction, Serhii Sukhomlyn, said that about 70 million hryvnias is needed to reconstruct the water treatment facilities of the water utility, which are needed to launch a new water supply system in Mykolaiv.

These funds are planned to be spent from the state budget, but the reconstruction project is currently undergoing an expert review. This is described in the article NikVesti «Tired of hauling those water jugs». Will Mykolaiv get drinking water in 2025?. Will Mykolaiv get drinking water in 2025?».

Sukhomlyn explained that the construction of new sewage treatment plants for Mykolaiv will be handled by the city authorities, but it takes time and money. Therefore, the state has found a temporary solution that will allow the water supply system to be put into operation as soon as possible — to modernise the water treatment facilities of the water utility.

«I want us to clearly understand and share areas of responsibility. The Reconstruction Agency, on behalf of the state, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, has to build a water supply system for the city of Mykolaiv and supply water to the city's treatment plants. It is the task of the city of Mykolaiv to modernise the water treatment plant.

However, realising that Mykolaiv is currently part of the World Bank project and that international procedures are sometimes quite complex and bureaucratic, we understand that by August, the city of Mykolaiv will simply not be physically able to cope with this task. That is why, on behalf of the Cabinet of Ministers, we are developing measures that, by partially upgrading the equipment of the Mykolaiv water utility, will provide more or less normal water quality for Mykolaiv,» said Sukhomlyn.

Preliminary, he said, the reconstruction of the treatment plant will cost about 70 million hryvnias.

«This is a partial reconstruction, installation of additional equipment, replacement of filters and everything else. This is about 70 million hryvnias. This is the second part of the project and it has not yet been submitted for examination, so I cannot say the exact amount, but it is approximately about that,» he said.

The Head of the State Agency added that it is planned to launch the water supply system along with the modernised sewage treatment plants in August 2025.

«As I said, in August we have absolutely every chance to supply water to the city of Mykolaiv. At the same time, we are trying to partially reconstruct Mykolaiv's treatment plant so that the water that comes to the treatment plant is treated,» he explained.

Water supply for Mykolaiv

It has been more than three years since Russian troops damaged the water supply pipeline that supplied Mykolaiv with water. Since then, the city of almost half a million people has been without a centralised supply of quality water. Currently, Mykolaiv residents receive water from a backup source, which raises many questions about the quality of this water and the salt content in it. The salt water damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city's water supply network. Boris Dudenko, director of «Mykolaivvodokanal», said that it is impossible to replace the entire length of the network that was damaged by salt water. As of August 2024, only about 3 kilometres of the network had been replaced.

All this time, representatives of state and local authorities were looking for ways to restore drinking water supply in Mykolaiv. The final solution was found in 2024: a new water supply line would be laid from Nova Odesa, and the money was allocated from the state budget.

The regional recovery service even selected contractors who will work according to the principle of «design-build». They are three companies, each of which is responsible for one of the three work areas: «Ukrtransmist», «Rostdorstroi» and «Avtostrada». However, later both the client and the construction contractor were changed. The customer for the construction of the new water pipeline was the Service for Infrastructure Restoration and Development in Dnipropetrovska oblast, and the contractor was the group of companies «Avtostrada».

The future water pipeline for Mykolaiv is expected to be built and launched by autumn 2025, said Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Reconstruction. Back during a conference in Berlin in 2024, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Korniienko, answering a question from NikVesti, said that the lack of drinking water in Mykolaiv was one of the biggest problems in Ukraine that the state should solve in the near future. And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered the construction of a new water supply system to provide Mykolaiv with drinking water «under the fast track option» — drinking water should be available by the summer of 2025. The government has already approved the programme.

Solar power plants are going to be installed on the water supply system for Mykolaiv, which will reduce the cost of water tariffs for the city's residents, said Vitalii Kim, head of the RMA. At the same time, the contractor «Autostrada» explained that they decided to lay a new water supply system for Mykolaiv from Nova Odesa, as it is the «closest site with good quality drinking water». They also showed photos of the construction of the new water supply system.

Still need more purified water

Although a new water supply system for Mykolaiv is promised to be built by autumn 2025, this does not guarantee that the city will immediately receive drinking water, as a new water treatment system needs to be built, Kristina Mikulova, head of the European Investment Bank's Eastern Europe Regional Centre, told NikVesti.

At the same time, Deputy Mayor of Mykolaiv and head of the city's recovery working group Serhiy Korenev said that the Mykolaiv Recovery Agency is working to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant and launch it simultaneously with the new water supply system. And Vitalii Kim, head of the Mykolaiv Regional Water Authority, said he did not want to rush to take out a large loan for the construction of water treatment facilities for Mykolaiv, despite the EIB's readiness to allocate more than €100 million.

Later, it became known that the State Agency for the Restoration and Development of Infrastructure is currently upgrading the water treatment system for Mykolaiv on behalf of the government.

Together with the constructed water pipeline, this will allow the city to launch a centralised drinking water supply in August 2025, said Sergiy Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Recovery and Development.