OREANDA-NEWS. March 22, 2011. In June of 2011 the content of phosphorus in total wastewater discharge of St. Petersburg will not exceed 0.5 mg/l that will enable the city to comply in full with the new requirements of Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM). This was announced today during the press-conference by SUE “Vodokanal of St. Petersburg” Director General, Mr. Felix Vladimirovich Karmazinov.

SUE “Vodokanal of St. Petersburg” carries out major efforts to prevent the pollution of the Baltic Sea, including by provision of wastewater treatment level compliance with the requirements of Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM), which are related to reduction of phosphorus and nitrogen discharge. These are the nutrients that negatively affect the condition of the Baltic Sea (as far as namely phosphorus and nitrogen provoke the active bloom of blue-green algae).

Today the technology of phosphorus and nitrogen deep removal is implemented at all the wastewater treatment plants of the city and it continues to be improved. The efforts implemented by St. Petersburg in the sphere of the Baltic Sea ecological situation improvement is highly appreciated by foreign specialists. In particular, ecologists from Finland during last summer have noted that there were less of blue-green algae in the eastern part of the Baltic Sea, and associated it directly with the wastewater treatment situation improvement in St. Petersburg. And the president of Finland Tarja Halonen during the meeting with the president of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev in autumn of 2010 named the wastewater treatment in St. Petersburg as “world-class achievement”.

Within the framework of the untreated wastewater discharge closure program implementation the treatment of 93% of wastewater is provided in St. Petersburg. For comparison – till 1978 practically all the wastewater of Leningrad (at that moment – approximately 3.2 million of cubic meters per day) discharged directly into the Neva and other rivers without any kind of treatment. At the end of 2011 the next stage of the Main Collector extension construction will be finished – with switching to it of the wastewater direct discharges at Vyborgskaya and Pirogovskaya embankments. This will provide the treatment of 95% of the wastewater. The construction of the Main Collector will be finished in 2012, when the construction of very complex facility – pumping station for wastewater flow control and auxiliary collectors at Robespierre and Petrogradskaya embankments – will be finished.

“Thus in 2012 we will treat 96 % of wastewater. And it is very good performance”, - noted F.V. Karmazinov.

Also till 2015 it is planned to eliminate direct discharges into the Okhta River district and at Petrogradskaya Storona, to construct new wastewater treatment plants in Lomonosov and Metallostroy.

During the next years the implementation of wastewater disinfection technology will be continued (today the disinfection of treated effluent is performed at South-Western Wastewater Treatment Plant and wastewater treatment plants in Sestroretsk and Repino).

The same serious attention in St. Petersburg is paid to the quality of potable water. Mr. Karmazinov exemplified the data of Saint-Petersburg branch of Rospotrebnadzor, according to which Hepatitis A morbidity reduced in 21 times since 2004. Namely in 2004 the implementation of potable water disinfection with UV was launched (by the way, St. Petersburg became the first megalopolis to disinfect with UV all the potable water). And though such a reduction of Hepatitis A morbidity was caused due to sanitary-hygienic situation improvement in total, the additional potable water disinfection played its own role.

Today Vodokanal completely provides the city with assured safe water, in accordance with all the quality standards. Technologies that are used at water treatment plants allow managing with any changes in the Neva water – including seasonal or conditional on freshet period.

At waterworks the water undergoes two-stage disinfection – by sodium hypochlorite (which has replaced liquid chlorine) and by ultraviolet irradiation.

In case of water quality deterioration in the River Neva there is a provision for an additional level of treatment – by means of powdered activated carbon. The carbon "collects" within itself the harmful substances which happened to find themselves in the Neva. Later this "saturated" carbon either goes through filtration process or is precipitated in sedimentation tanks. Vodokanal has accumulated the necessary stock of activated carbon to last for the whole freshet period.

Besides, for the high water period waterworks traditionally increase the dosage of other chemicals used for water treatment: coagulants, precipitators, sodium hypochlorite and ammonium sulfate. UV water disinfection is carried out more intensively.

Meanwhile, the water quality is monitored at all stages – at water intake from the River Neva (including the implementation of the biological monitoring system with the help of crayfish), in the process of treatment, at the outlet of waterworks and at the entrance to houses. The monitoring is carried out not only by Vodokanal, but also by an independent body – Center for Water Research and Monitoring, as well as by Saint-Petersburg branch of Rospotrebnadzor.

For the first time in 2010 the daily average water supply to the city was less than 2 million m3/day – 1 million 995 thous. M2/day. Mr. Felix V. Karmazinov explained why the reduction of water consumption is beneficial for the Company, “If the water consumption had been at the same level, the Company would have had to deploy new water supply and wastewater disposal facilities, increase the tariffs and, possibly, still suffer from financial deficit. “But today we maintain the average tariffs for Russia and at the same time carry out a large-scale reconstruction”, noted the Director General of Vodokanal.

An example of large-scale water supply system reconstruction is the Neva Water Project, which was launched in February this year. It involves a reconstruction of the Northern Waterworks on the public-private partnership (PPP) basis, including the construction of a new water treatment unit with the capacity of 800 thousand m3 of potable water per day.

In the framework of this Project the Government of Saint-Petersburg has announced an open tender for design, construction, reconstruction and operation of the Northern Waterworks’ (NW) facilities. The tender manager is Saint-Petersburg government organization GU “Agency for Strategic Investments”.

The city of Saint-Petersburg and SUE “Vodokanal of Saint-Petersburg” will sign a public-private partnership (PPP) agreement with the tender winner in 2012 for the period of 30 years. The first stage of the tender is the testing of technologies, offered by the bidders. It is important to have these technologies tested in various seasons to see if they will be effective in winter, summer and in the spring and autumn freshet period.

Simultaneously, in the years to come SUE “Vodokanal of Saint-Petersburg” is planning to carry out reconstruction of the Main Waterworks, involving the construction of a new water treatment unit with the capacity of 500 thousand m3/day.

It should be reminded that a new water treatment unit has already been built at the Southern Waterworks with the capacity of 350 thousand m3/day. It started to provide the city with water this past winter.

Thus, by 2015-2016 upon completion of reconstruction works at the Northern and Main Waterworks all potable water supplied to the city will be produced using the most advanced technological solutions.