New St. Petersburg sewage treatment plant to be inaugurated today

Russian, Finnish, Swedish leaders attend ceremony

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The completion of the southeastern sewage treatment plant in St. Petersburg is expected to be a positive step in cleaning up the Gulf of Finland.
      The plant is to be officially inaugurated today, Thursday, in a ceremony attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Finnish President Tarja Halonen, and Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson.
      The project, which experienced a number of delays, cost nearly EUR 190 million, with funding coming from Finland, Sweden, and Norway, as well as the Nordic Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
      "The project succeeded better than most people expected. Many felt that it was a miracle that this was completed on time, and that the budget has held", said Matti Rantala, head of Nordvod, the company set up to manage the construction project.
     
The new treatment plant is expected to ease the burden of sewage emissions inflicted on the Gulf of Finland. Heikki Pitkänen, an expert at the Finnish Environment Institute, says that the plant will reduce emissions of nutrients from St. Petersburg by about 15%, with respect to both phosphorous and nitrogen. The reduction in all phosphorous emissions into the Gulf of Finland will be about five percent.
      The waste water of more than 700,000 residents of St. Petersburg, which was previously dumped untreated into the sea, will now be treated at the new plant.
     
Although the plant will alleviate the problems of emissions into the Gulf of Finland, St. Petersburg remains a major polluter of the ecologically sensitive body of water. The waste water of 800,000 residents in the city will continue to flow into the Neva River and the Gulf of Finland without treatment.
      The sewage could be handled by an existing treatment plant northwest of the city, but that would require the construction of a large drainage tunnel to collect the sewage from the labyrinth of smaller drains running beneath the city. Work on such a collector drain is proceeding slowly, and the city’s water company Vodokanal hopes that it can get international financing for the project.
      Vodokanal director-general Felix Karmazinov says that the tunnel should be completed in 2008, and that the whole sewage treatment project for the city should be ready in 2010.
      "Much has already been done. In 1987 St. Petersburg did not have any sewage treatment. Now 85% of sewage is treated", Karmazinov pointed out.
     
Construction work on the southwest sewage treatment plant began in 1987. It was suspended in 1992 after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Preparations to resume the project with outside help began in 1999 with Finnish and Swedish help. The actual construction was resumed in 2003, and it was completed without financing from the Russian State or the City of St. Petersburg.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Halonen, Persson, and Putin meet in St. Petersburg (8.9.2005)
  Bottom of Gulf of Finland remains in poor condition (22.8.2005)
  St. Petersburg wastewater treatment plant scheduled for completion in summer 2005 (12.11.2003)
  St. Petersburg, major polluter of Gulf of Finland, gets help for cleanup (5.6.2001)

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