A new water treatment plant for Mykolaiv is scheduled to be launched on 15 April, but the city has yet to accept it on its balance sheet

Construction of water treatment facilities for Mykolaiv, photo by MikVsti

The contractor, Autostrada, promises to complete the new water treatment plant for Mykolaiv by 15 April 2026.

At a session on 12 March, Mykolaiv City Council deputies decided to accept the new water treatment facilities onto the city's balance sheet, but this decision still has to be approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, according to NikVesti.

«The station is currently being completed. On Tuesday (10 March, — note), a meeting was held, chaired by the deputy head of the Regional State Administration, Valentin Haidarzhy. At the meeting, representatives of the Autostrada company announced that they plan to complete the construction work on 15 April,» said Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych.

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The mayor then proposed that deputies vote on a draft decision to accept the new water treatment facilities into the city's balance sheet. This step is necessary in order to put them into operation on the basis of the municipal enterprise Mykolaivvodokanal and connect them to the power supply, explained Oleksandr Sienkevych.

«We know how long this process takes at the level of ministries and departments. Therefore, I proposed that we confirm the session's decision to accept this treatment plant into the ownership of the city of Mykolaiv. There may be a problem with connecting it to the power grid: since the facility will not be ours, we will not be able to connect it to the power grid at the water utility.

They agreed and sent us the text yesterday morning with the name of this facility. We prepared a draft decision by the evening. Unfortunately, we were unable to get it through the committees. But I think this issue is critical, extremely important for Mykolaiv, so we will adopt it today and send it to the ministry. They will be at a Cabinet meeting next week, will receive this document from us, and will prepare to transfer this station to us,» explained Oleksandr Sienkevych.

The deputies unanimously approved the decision to accept the new water treatment facilities on the city's balance sheet — 33 deputies voted in favour.

Read also the article by NikVesti «The state is building new treatment facilities, while Mykolaiv insists on their modernisation with an EIB loan: what will the city gain from this?»

When will the new water treatment facilities start operating?

The new water treatment facilities for centralised water supply in Mykolaiv are promised to be launched as early as January 2026, but they are promised to be fully operational later. They were built with funds saved during the construction of a new water pipeline.

Initially, it was planned to take out an EIB loan for the construction of new water treatment facilities for Mykolaiv, with Denmark providing part of the funding as a grant. The project was expected to take several years to complete and was intended to help provide the city with water of European standard.

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

However, Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych supports the modernisation of new water treatment facilities with 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 in its taps and how much will it cost?»

Water pipeline for Mykolaiv. A bit of 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 almost half a million people has been left without a centralised supply of 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 its salt content. Salt water has 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 the supply of salty 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, and the money will be allocated from the state budget.

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

The new water pipeline for Mykolaiv was put into operation on 7 October 2025 and connected to the water supply network.