Water for a big city
SUE “Vodokanal of St. Petersburg” provides drinking water to 5 million citizens and tens of thousands of companies and enterprises. One more task of Vodokanal is to collect and treat wastewater.
Facts and Figures
Vodokanal St. Petersburg supplies water and wastewater services to the population of 5.3 million people and to tens of thousands of city companies and organizations.
The owner of Vodokanal St. Petersburg assets is the City of St. Petersburg represented by authorized state bodies.
Vodokanal also operates the city fountains and public toilets; since 2012, a new activity area has appeared in Vodokanal – construction and operation of permanent snow-melting stations.
The water supply system includes:
- 7,414 km of water networks
- 187 booster pumping stations
- 9 water treatment plants (the largest ones – Southern Water Treatment Plant, Northern Water Treatment Plant, Main Water Treatment Plant)
- 2 sodium hypochlorite plants
The sewerage system includes:
- 9,093.2 km of sewerage networks
- 271.4 km of tunnel collectors
- 213 wastewater pumping stations
- 18 wastewater treatment plants (including 14 municipal wastewater treatment plants and 4 surface runoff treatment plants. The largest plants are Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, Northern Wastewater Treatment Plant, South-West Wastewater Treatment Plant)
- 3 wastewater sludge incineration plants
- 11 permanent snow-melting stations
- 7 permanent technically equipped snow collection points
Vodokanal's major achievements in water treatment:
- all potable water is UV treated before supply to the city to ensure its epidemiological safety;
- no liquid chlorine is used for water disinfection, it is replaced with hazard-free, non-toxic sodium hypochlorite;
- hazard-free and non-toxic ammonia sulfate is used for water ammonization instead of ammonia solutions;
- when ammoniating water, instead of ammonia solutions, safe and non-toxic ammonium sulfate is used at production facilities;
- a bio-monitoring system is used to check the Neva water quality where the crayfish are chief "inspectors";
- PAC (powdered activated carbon) dosing system has been implemented to remove odor and oil products.
Vodokanal's major achievements in wastewater treatment:
As much as 98.6 % of all wastewater are treated in St. Petersburg now. On 10 October 2013, the Northern Tunnel Collector was put into operation to allow the closure of 76 untreated wastewater discharges equivalent to nearly 122 Mio. m3 per year. In December 2014, Vodokanal St. Petersburg closed nine direct discharges from Petrovskiy Stadium, which had brought about 1,000 m3/day of untreated sewage into the Neva. Moreover, direct discharges were eliminated along the Petrogradskaya embankment in late 2014, and along the Admiralteyskaya and Fontanka embankments – in 2015. In 2016, rehabilitation and construction of sewage networks made it possible to close 15 direct discharges (3 combined, 1 domestic, 2 stormwater and 9 stormwater receiving points). As a result, the amount of untreated wastewater discharges into water bodies was reduced by 366 m3/day. In 2017, the stormwater sewerage system was reconstructed as part of the Murinsky Park landscaping, therefore, 7 stormwater discharges were connected to the main tunnel sewer and diverted to the Northern WWTP. In 2017, 11 untreated wastewater direct discharges were totally closed (9 stormwater discharges and 2 stormwater receiving point) equivalent to 28,500 m3/day.
In 2018, 11 untreated wastewater direct discharges were totally closed (7 stormwater discharges, 3 stormwater receiving point, and 1 combined discharge) equivalent to 9,061.6 m3/day.
- St. Petersburg has solved the sewage sludge disposal problem. Three sludge incineration plants are in operation in the city;
- St. Petersburg wastewater treatment plants have implemented the enhanced nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) removal process to meet the HELCOM (the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission) requirements. It led to the reduction of nutrient load on the Neva, the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea.
- Vodokanal has implemented a biomonitoring system to check the quality of treated effluent (the monitoring is done by Australian red-claw crayfish) and the composition of flue gases from the sludge incineration plant (the monitoring is done by giant African snails).
Daily average supply of potable water in St. Petersburg
- 2004 – 2,578,800 m3
- 2005 – 2,514,700 m3
- 2006 – 2,466,900 m3
- 2007 – 2,311,200 m3
- 2008 – 2,168,900 m3
- 2009 – 2,028,200 m3
- 2010 – 1,994,700 m3
- 2011 – 1,922,900 m3
- 2012 – 1,853,300 m3
- 2013 – 1,808,800 m3
- 2014 – 1,712,700 m3
- 2015 – 1,635,600 m3
- 2016 – 1,603,900 m3
- 2017 – 1,555,900 m3
- 2018 – 1,540,300 m3
In 2017, water losses and consumption for auxiliary needs was 11%.
In 2018, water losses and consumption for auxiliary needs was 9.8%.
Vodokanal has an efficient customer feedback system. The company hot line (+7 812 305-09-09) works round the clock.
Vodokanal pays a great attention to the awareness-raising work. The Company has the Information and Training Centre that includes the Universe of Water Museum Complex and the Youth Environmental Centre.
The International Advanced Water Technologies Centre also operates at the premises of Vodokanal.
