Feature story

Shared pollution, shared solutions for the Baltic Sea

Subscribe to feature stories email alerts

Related links Russia homepage Environment homepage St Petersburg South-West Waste Water Treatment Plant [Project Summary Document] EBRD backs project to cut Baltic Sea pollution [Press Release]

St. Petersburg Waste Water project benefits the whole region.

Construction started -- and stopped -- in the soviet era.

Governor Yakovlev puts his trowel to work relaunching sewage plant construction.

Lenders, donors and officials prepare a time capsule to relaunch sewage plant construction.

Lenders, donors unite to clean up St Petersburg sewage.

Hanna Matinpuro is tired of not being free to bathe in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. "It happens every summer that for several weeks along the Finnish coast, you can't swim," says Ms Matinpuro of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation.

Poisonous algae blooms fed by phosphorus and nitrogen pollution, mainly from untreated sewage originating in St Petersburg on the other side of the Gulf, render the water unsafe for part of each summer. "In the summer, if you fly over the Gulf of Finland between Russia and Finland, it is one big, big field of noxious algae blooms," says Timo Hokkanen, recently-named manager of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) Support Fund, managed by the EBRD.

Now a St Petersburg sewage treatment plant, left half-finished when construction funds ran out in the soviet era, is due for completion. Shepherded by the NDEP Support Fund, a group of donors and lenders are backing the €166 million project to remove a major source of pollution threatening Russia and its neighbours on the Gulf of Finland and the wider Baltic Sea.

"This is a much-needed project," said Vladimir Yakovlev, governor of St Petersburg, at a ceremony when construction was resumed recently on the Southwest Waste Water Treatment Plant (SWWTP). "Over 1.2 million cubic metres of untreated sewage were, until now, being pumped into the sea every day. This project is a joint effort by the countries that border the Baltic Sea and it represents a major environmental victory."

The EBRD is lending €35.4 million to the sewage treatment project.

International cooperation

"This is a landmark project on which we have been working intensively with the City of St. Petersburg and Vodokanal (the city water authority) to bring about an effective public/private partnership," says Gavin Anderson, EBRD's business group director for infrastructure investments. "It is a hugely important undertaking that will bring large benefits both for St. Petersburg and the countries which share the Baltic Sea coastline, so it is right that this should be the result of cooperation at an international level."

The Helsinki-based Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) is investing €45 million. The European Union's European Investment Bank (EIB) is to participate through a separate €15.5 million loan to Vodokanal. Other investors include Sweden's Swedfund International, the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation and the Helsinki-based Nordic Environmental Finance Corporation.

Another €50 million comes from donor funds. The EU's TACIS programme has donated €24 million, the Swedish International Development Agency, €11 million and the Finnish Environment Ministry, €10 million.

Support Fund as catalyst

Of the donor funds, the smallest portion -- €5.8 million -- is from the NDEP Support Fund, which Mr Hokkanen manages out of the EBRD's Environment Department. Created to address environmental calamities in northwest Russia, the NDEP aims to enhance cooperation between the Russian Federation, European Union, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and international financial institutions. More countries are expected to join the initiative.

"The whole idea of the NDEP is to use donor money from our support fund to attract other donor money and catalyse loans from international financial institutions," says Mr Hokkanen. "The donor funds close the gap in terms of what municipalities like St Petersburg can afford, and the investment required." The NDEP Support Fund now stands at €100 million and major new contributions are expected soon.

300th anniversary

The sewage treatment project is one of a number of environmental initiatives announced recently for St Petersburg, which this week celebrates the 300th anniversary of its founding. A jewel of Russian architecture and other national cultural treasures, Russia's second largest city is beset with severe environmental problems.

Each day St Petersburg pours raw sewage into the Neva river which opens into the Gulf of Finland. "Once the river has passed through the city, the water is very brown and, in summer, it smells on hot days," says Mr Hokkanen, a Finnish national who lived in St Petersburg for five years. "You wouldn't want to swim in it, although people do. You can see it's not clean."

The sewage treatment plant is the single most important initiative in cutting the Gulf's pollution load. When completed, the plant will be able to handle 330,000 cubic metres of sewage a day. Two key related projects - construction of inlets to collect the sewage for treatment (€15 million) and the SWWTP's separate sludge incinerator (€22 million) - are earmarked for financing by the EIB and EU-TACIS.

The EBRD is expected to be lead financial institution for a third related project, construction of a €52.6 million incinerator for sludge from the city's northern sewage treatment plant. The EBRD is expected to lend €23.8 million; €9 million may come from the NIB which wants to "strenghten our particular focus on environmental projects with cross-border effects in the Baltic Sea region," says NIB senior vice president Oddvar Sten Ronsen. The NDEP Support Fund has pledged €6.35 million to the north-end incinerator and other donors have pledged €350,000. Vodokanal will finance the remainder.

The EBRD previously signed two local environmental projects that fit into the strategy for St Petersburg - one in 2001 to rehabilitate St. Petersburg's sole official toxic waste dump located close to the main catchment area for the city's water, and another in 1997 to support Vodokanal with capital investments.

Plant is "an important step"

"The St Petersburg waste water treatment plant is an important step in reducing the pollution load in the Gulf of Finland," said Gunnar Norén, executive secretary of Coalition Clean Baltic, based in Sweden. "St Petersburg is the biggest city in the Baltic Sea region and the biggest single point source of pollution via the Neva, the biggest river in the region." He and Finnish environmentalist Hanna Matipuro told Blueprint they hope the St Petersburg initiative is just the first of many to address Baltic Sea eutrophication - the process through which sewage renders waters overrich in nutrients and minerals, thus promoting algae growth. They said local, national and regional approaches require addressing smaller municipal, agricultural and industrial sources of pollution.

The sewage treatment plant loan is the second EBRD commitment under the NDEP. The first was signed last December when the EBRD committed $245 million - its largest loan ever for a single project - towards the completion of the St Petersburg Flood Protection Barrier. For more information please see the following websites: www.ndep.org

Contact: The EBRD Environment Department

29 May 2003