One of the biggest threats to Lozovaya’s critical infrastructure is the emergency condition of a half-century-old pressure collector. Ukraine: How repairing an old collector helped avoid a collapse in the work of almost 190 enterprises Economic development
The city of Lozovaya in the Kharkiv region is located one hundred kilometers from the front line. It was not occupied, but was repeatedly subjected to Russian shelling. During the full-scale invasion of Lozovaya, about 500 residential buildings and more than 100 infrastructure and public utilities were damaged. In May 2022, a city landmark, the Palace of Culture, was destroyed by a direct hit.
One of the biggest threats to Lozovaya’s critical infrastructure is the emergency condition of a half-century-old pressure sewer. A pressure sewer is part of an urban drainage system that collects and transports large volumes of rainwater or wastewater. It ensures that water is diverted to treatment facilities or discharge points, preventing flooding, damage to infrastructure, and environmental pollution.
“Problems with the sewer in our city began in 2018, when it began to collapse en masse,” says Sergey Grankin, head of the economic department of the Lozovsky City Council, “This threatened the environment and created inconvenience for residents. The city was forced to completely shut off the water supply to avoid wastewater leaks in the microdistricts.”
To partially solve this problem, the community was allocated funds from the state and regional budgets. As a result, critical collapses were eliminated, but the problem did not go away and required a comprehensive solution. Understanding this, local authorities began to develop design documentation for the repair of the sewer system.
After 2022, the reconstruction of the pressure collector became especially relevant, since Lozovaya became a shelter for people fleeing active hostilities. The city received more than 13 thousand internally displaced persons from Kharkov, Izyum, Barvinkovo, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk. Lozovaya also became a new location for small and medium businesses that had moved from the Kharkov and Donetsk regions. To ensure their operations, the enterprises needed a stable water supply and sewerage system.
“The reconstruction of the pressure collector is a very important project for us, but its cost was more than 40 million hryvnia. This is simply an unaffordable amount for our budget, especially in wartime, but we understood that a complete failure of the collector would paralyze the work of almost 190 enterprises and leave almost 70 percent of the city’s residents without water and sewerage,” Grankin recalls.
Then the community decided to apply for participation in the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) project “Supporting the Rapid Economic Recovery of Ukrainian Municipalities.” This initiative is aimed at restoring the local economies of 12 Ukrainian cities through investments in improving infrastructure for business development. The project covers both large regional centers and relatively small municipalities, including Lozova.
“It is difficult to overestimate the importance of upgrading public infrastructure,” says Grankin. “Despite the war, industrial enterprises, construction organizations, trade and public catering facilities continue to operate here. There are also many displaced persons here. Thanks to Germany’s assistance and cooperation with the UNDP, we have ensured one of the main conditions for the functioning of enterprises – uninterrupted water supply and sewerage. In addition, this makes our city more attractive to foreign investors.”
Lozovaya is not the only city implementing a project to restore access to water supply services in industrial areas where a large number of micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises are concentrated. During the months-long blockade of Chernigov, constant shelling by Russian troops caused serious damage to some sections of the water supply system. With financial support from the German government, more than two kilometers of the water supply system were restored, ensuring uninterrupted water supply to 35 enterprises and 42,000 city residents.
In the city of Smila in the Cherkasy region, the reconstruction of water supply networks in one of the most problematic areas of the city is nearing completion. The project helped local authorities purchase a generator for uninterrupted water supply and repair a water pumping station. These works will not only ensure a stable water supply to enterprises, but will also significantly improve the supply of drinking water to the largest microdistricts of the city.
Thanks to the implemented initiatives, Lozovaya, Chernigov, Smila and nine other Ukrainian cities affected by the war are being restored, strengthening their potential and making confident steps towards economic growth.