«People will get water in August»: State Agency for Reconstruction says work on water supply for Mykolaiv is almost complete

«The» motorway has almost completed the construction of a water pipeline for Mykolaiv. Photo: Rehabilitation Agency

The company «Avtostrada» has almost completed the construction of a water supply system for Mykolaiv. According to the forecast, in August the city's residents should receive water that meets sanitary standards.

This was reported by the Recovery Agency.

It noted that work on the project is nearing completion. Recently, Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the Recovery Agency, together with First Deputy Mykola Boiko and Deputy Minister of Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine Kostiantyn Kovalchuk, inspected the water supply system.

«The commissioning will take place in July, and people will receive water in August. Farmers will receive an additional 50,000 cubic metres per day to irrigate their fields,» the agency writes.

A delegation from the Recovery Agency and its head Serhii Sukhomlyn have recently inspected the work at the facility. Photo: The Recovery Agency

A delegation of the Recovery Agency and its head Serhii Sukhomlyn have recently inspected the work at the facility. Photo: The Recovery Agency

A delegation of the Recovery Agency and its head Serhii Sukhomlyn have recently inspected the works at the site. Photo: Recovery Agency

During the visit, the delegation inspected one of the pumping stations and the water intake site. The Agency emphasises that the cost of the works was reduced by 2 billion hryvnias.

«The Mykolaiv water supply system is an example of a comprehensive approach to reconstruction and efficient use of funds. Frequency converters, a fibre optic system, backup generators and power lines. Everything that has been added to the project, while reducing its cost by 2 billion hryvnias, is in place. Almost all the pipes have been laid, and anti-shakedown defences and shelters for workers are being built. Pumping stations and the water intake site are being equipped with everything necessary,» they added.

As a reminder, Maksym Shkil, founder of «Avtostrada», recently spoke about the ongoing construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv. So far, almost 120 kilometres of pipes have been laid, which is more than 90% of the total length of the water supply system.

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When the water supply system is launched in autumn 2025, the water in the taps of Mykolaiv residents will meet sanitary standards. However, about 70 million hryvnias is needed to reconstruct the water treatment facilities of the water utility, which are necessary for the water supply system to operate.

At the same time, it is known that the construction of new water treatment facilities in Mykolaiv was previously estimated at 132 million euros. However, the construction of the water supply system from Nova Odesa reduced the cost of these works by 2.5 times, as the water quality in that section of the Southern Bug is better than expected.

Water supply for Mykolaiv

It has been more than three years since Russian troops damaged the water pipeline supplying Mykolaiv. 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 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 «Avtostrada» 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 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.