Over ₴3 million to be spent in Mykolaiv to check water quality in pump rooms

People collect purified water in Mykolaiv. Photo by NikVesti

Mykolaiv plans to spend more than three million hryvnias on laboratory tests of drinking water quality at the point of delivery.

The relevant tender was published on Tuesday, 20 May, on the Prozorro portal, according to NikVesti.

The customer of the services is the utility company «Pilot». Bids will be accepted until 28 May, and an electronic auction will be held the following day. The minimum bidding step is over 30 thousand hryvnias.

According to the terms of reference, the study should cover 111 pump rooms across the city. The water will be tested for a wide range of indicators, from chemical and microbiological to radiological. The list of mandatory tests includes the detection of heavy metals (lead, mercury, copper, cadmium, arsenic), nitrates, fluorides, coliform bacteria, and viruses such as hepatitis A and rotavirus. The organoleptic properties of the water will also be assessed, including taste, clarity, smell and colour.

Screenshot of the tender application from the Prozorro portal

The contractor must be accredited according to the international standard ISO/IEC 17025, have experience, the necessary laboratory equipment and ensure prompt sampling. Under the terms of the tender, the samples must be delivered to the laboratory as quickly as possible, including in the evening or at night, if necessary.

The results of the research will be provided to the customer in printed and electronic form, with the signatures of the responsible persons and a full list of regulatory indicators.

The term of service provision is scheduled to end by 31 December this year.

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Water supply for Mykolaiv

Almost three years have passed 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 drinking water. Currently, Mykolaiv residents receive water from a backup source, which raises many questions about the quality of the water and the salt content. The salt water damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city's water supply network. Borys 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 «Autostrada». 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 Dnipropetrovsk region, and the contractor was the group of companies «Avtostrada».

The future water supply system 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. However, 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 Regional Centre for Eastern Europe, told NikVesti.

At the same time, Deputy Mayor of Mykolaiv and head of the city's recovery working group Serhii Koreniev 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 Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Recovery and Development.