Removal of phosphorous from St Petersburg waste water to begin next year

Finnish foundation pays for chemical treatment

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Emissions of phosphorous compounds from the Russian city of St Petersburg into the Gulf of Finland are to decline significantly in the coming years, if a planned project for chemical treatment is implemented.
      The project is a joint effort by the Finnish John Nurminen Foundation and the St  Petersburg water utility Vodokanal.
     
The aim of the Clean Sea Project is to start chemical phosphorous removal at the city’s largest sewage treatment facility, the Central Plant, by next summer. The plant handles the sewage of about 2.4 million people.
      Later the phosphorous removal is to be extended to plants in the southwest and north.
      Chemical removal of phosphorous would serve as first aid of sorts to reduce excessive algae growth in the Gulf of Finland. Marjukka Porvari, head of the Clean Sea Project, says that implementing phosphorous removal at all three treatment plants would eliminate 20% of emissions into the Gulf of Finland of the phosphorous that algae feeds on.
      Experts say that the impact of the moves would be seen in improved water quality already within a few years.
     
St Petersburg is the largest source of pollutants in the Baltic Sea. The city produces 75% of the waste water that gets dumped into the Gulf of Finland.
      The sewage treatment plant in the southwest of the city, which was opened in September, processes the waste water of about 700,000 people, which had was previously dumped straight into the sea with no treatment at all.
      However, the new biological treatment plant only removes part of nutrients that contribute to eutrophication in the sea.
     
So far, Vodokanal has focused on the construction of drains, so that all of the sewage produced by the metropolis could be channelled to a treatment plant. Currently about one fifth of all of the city’s waste water - the output of more than 800,000 people - is dumped straight into the sea.
      That is why the company has not yet embarked on chemical phosphorous removal, which is a more efficient way of eliminating phosphorous emissions than the biological processes. The chemical process is in use in nearly all other coastal cities on the Baltic Sea.
      According to initial estimates, the construction of chemical phosphorous removal for the two largest sewage treatment plants in St Petersburg would cost about EUR 1.5 million, and the annual running costs would be EUR 2-3 million.
      The John Nurminen Foundation has set up a Clean Sea fund, which has received donations from private individuals. It now has amassed a total of about EUR 700,000.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Halonen and Putin discuss environment in St Petersburg (23.9.2005)
  New St Petersburg sewage treatment plant to be inaugurated today (22.9.2005)
  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)

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