HELCOM delegation to attend commissioning of St. Petersburg Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant

Helsinki, 16 September (HELCOM) – At the invitation of the Governor of St. Petersburg, a delegation of the Helsinki Commission Secretariat, led by the Executive Secretary, Ms Anne Christine Brusendorff, will attend the commissioning ceremony of the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant in St. Petersburg on Thursday, 22 September 2005.

“The completion of the plant is an extremely important and very welcome development for the city of St. Petersburg and the whole Baltic Sea environment. The plant will drastically cut the effluent load that St. Petersburg is currently discharging untreated into the Gulf of Finland,” said Ms Brusendorff. “This is one of the highest priority water protection projects in the whole of the Baltic Sea region. We, at HELCOM consider it as a major effort to achieve a cleaner marine environment in the Baltic, and would like to congratulate St. Petersburg authorities, municipal water utility Vodokanal and all those who contributed to this outstanding success,” she added.

Wastewater from St. Petersburg is the Baltic Sea’s single biggest pollution point source. Reduction of the effluent load has been one of HELCOM priority objectives in order to improve the condition of the Baltic Sea.

According to Vodokanal, once fully operational, the new plant will have an average daily capacity of 330,000m³ and treat the wastewater from 720,000 of St. Petersburg's population of 5 million. This will cut in half the amount of untreated wastewater currently discharged directly into the sea. Specialists estimate that the St. Petersburg wastewater treatment system will now reduce the overall amount of untreated wastewater discharged from the city into the sea to about 15% of the total.

Begun in the days of the former Soviet Union, and postponed due to lack of funds, the construction of the plant was resumed on 21 March 2003. The current project was financed from a total of 14 different Russian, Western European and Scandinavian sources, notably through bank loans, government grants and donations. The bodies involved include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Nordic Investment Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership, NEFCO, the Swedfund International AB, EU’s TACIS Fund (Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States), the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation, the Finnish Ministry of the Environment and the Swedish International Development Agency. This project is the largest of its kind in Europe and its cost is estimated at around € 180 million.

Contacts

HELCOM Secretariat

Mr Kaj Forsius
Professional Secretary
Tel: +358 9 62202221
Fax: +358 9 62202239

E-mail:  Kaj.forsius@helcom.fi

Mr Nikolay Vlasov
Information Secretary
Tel: +358 9 62202235
Fax: +358 9 6220 2239

E-mail: nikolay.vlasov@helcom.fi