«Not perfect, but it will meet sanitary standards»: the State Agency for Reconstruction answered what the quality of water in Mykolaiv residents' taps will be this year

A woman collects water from a trolleybus at a water distribution point, May 2025. Photo by NikVesti

Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Restoration and Development, said that after the launch of the new water supply system in autumn 2025, the water in the taps of Mykolaiv residents will meet sanitary standards.

This is stated in the article NikVesti «Tired of hauling those water jugs». Will Mykolaiv get drinking water in 2025?».

However, after the water supply system is launched, it will take time to flush the city's networks, which contain residual salt water, explained the head of the State Agency for Reconstruction.

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«But there is another thing to consider. We understand that salt water has been supplied to the city all this time, and many of the networks have been destroyed and contaminated. It will take some time to properly flush the system and remove the remnants of the water that was there. That is why it is impossible to open the water supply system and get clean water in an hour,» said Sukhomlyn.

He explained that the water in the taps of the townspeople will meet sanitary standards, but in order to launch drinking water, it is necessary to build new water treatment plants and replace the town's underground networks.

«The quality will not be perfect, because in order to get the perfect quality, we need to build completely new treatment plants and do work on the networks. This is definitely not our area of responsibility.

But the water will be much better. It will meet sanitary standards. That is, after the reconstruction, Mykolaiv's treatment plants will be able to supply water to the city that will meet sanitary standards. It may be on the edge of sanitary standards, but it will be much better than it is today. It will not contain salt and many other things that are present today. This is 100%,» explained Sukhomlyn.

Water supply for Mykolaiv

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 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. 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 «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 Dnipropetrovsk region, 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 Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Recovery and Development.