Sewerage System

Categories / City Services/Housing and Communal Services
SEWERAGE SYSTEM, wastewater treatment facilities. In the first quarter of the 18th century as the city territory grew, it was drained, and the system for discharge of surface water was built in the shape of plank-secured ditches along the city streets. According to certain data, as early as in the first quarter of the 18th century underground water pipes were laid in some places. By a decree of Empress Catherine the Great in 1770 the building of underground canals started along the major city streets for disposing of rainwater. The conduit pipes were bricked or made of wooden shields, at definite intervals wells were set up over the pipes; the wells were covered with metal grating, through which surface water fell into the underground pipes and flowed down to the city drainage network. The underground pipe lines were built without any particular method, sometimes without sufficient gradient, which hampered the flow of water, and led to street flooding during heavy rains. In 1834, the length of underground pipes amounted to 95 km. Houseowners were allowed to use house sanitary installations (wash-stands etc.) on condition that waste water should be poured out in the yards in specially designated areas. In the 18th century through the first half of the 19th century sewage and dirt as well as industrial waste water were drained into city rivers and canals (see Public lavatories), without any purification. The pollution of city bodies of water and contamination of street canals forced the government to issue a law in 1845 that prohibited to connect the house cesspools to the street pipes. By the late 19th century due to the rapid development of the water-supply network (see Water supply services) and the building of multi-storeyed buildings equipped with wash-down lavatories, most house cesspools were connected to the street sewerage system. So-called combined sewerage system had been formed: one network was used for the disposal of domestic, industrial and surface water run-offs. The absence of waste purification utilities system led to the transformation of St. Petersburg minor rivers and canals into open sewage collectors. Since 1866 City Duma had been considering various sewerage system organization projects, but none of them was implemented. By 1917 the length of major sewerage pipe-lines in Petrograd totalled 486 km (including 356 km of wooden pipes and 130 km of concrete tiles), 40% of the city streets were not supplied with sewerage facilities. In the 1920s a project of a separate sewerage system was discussed and approved by Leningrad Soviet in 1925; it provided for the domestic and industrial effluent discharge towards the places of their withdrawal into the Gulf of Finland, while surface water run-offs via other pipes were withdrawn into the nearest drainpipes. According to the project of 1925 the area of the City of Leningrad was divided into four sewer territories: Nezarechny (with the principal station located in the mouth of the Fontanka River), Vasileostrovsky (with the principal station in the district of Grebnoy Port), Petrogradsky (with the principal station on Krestovsky Island) and Vyborgsky (with the principal station west of Staraya Derevnya). In 1925 the works for sewerage network construction started downtown Leningrad, as well as in the former outskirts (Nevskaya Zastava and Narvskaya Zastava, Vyborgskaya Side, Bolshaya Okhta and Malaya Okhta, on Dekabristov Island and Galernaya Harbour). By the late 1927 the length of the street sewerage network reached 716 km (including 445 km of wooden pipes); their replacement with concrete ones started the same year. By 1935 the building of the sewerage network on Vasilievsky Island was completed (with the lines length of 135 km), but the experience showed there were problems with deep pipe installation, which necessitated corrective action. By 1941 the total length of sewerage network amounted to 1130 km. During the first winter of the siege (1941-42) the sewerage system and water-supply were disabled and restored only in 1942. In 1941-44 as a result of numerous air raids and bombardment 4 kilometres of the sewerage network were destroyed, though through the efforts of Vodokanal Department emergency units the damaged sectors were reconstructed on-the-fly. In 1949 the rearrangement of the sewerage network started downtown Leningrad (in the area between the Neva and the Obvodny Canal), and a combined sewer system was installed along Obvodny Canal, the Fontanka River, Griboedova Canal, the Moyka and the Pryazhka rivers. The sewer collectors were connected to the main pumping station at Ogorodnikova Avenue, present-day Rizhsky Avenue; the station was launched in 1958. This station dumped the effluents into the mouth of the Fontanka River. In the early 1970s a collector was laid along the left bank of the Neva and attached to this basin, as was the sewage collection system of the districts south of Obvodny Canal. By 1956 the length of the street sewage network totalled 1,207 km. A new master plan of the Leningrad sewerage system was developed in 1963 (some adjustments were made in 1972 and 1979; the plan is still in use to the present time). This plan provided for establishment of three sewer basins: 1) of the central and southern parts of the city (including Vasilievsky Island) with the sewage treatment facilities on Bely island; 2) of the northern part of the city (including Petrogradskaya Side) with the sewage treatment facilities in Olgino; and 3) of the south-western part of the city with the sewage treatment facilities on Volkhonskoe Highway. In 1978 Krasnoselsky Aeration Station was put into operation, servicing the south-western districts of the city, with the capacity of 70,000 cubic meters a day. The initial phase of construction of sewage treatment facilities on Bely Island with the capacity of 750,000 cubic meters a day was launched in 1979. In 1983 the second phase of the same capacity was added. Two sets of the first phase of sewage treatment facilities in Olgino with the total capacity of 1,250,000 cubic meters a day were introduced in 1987-94. In 2003 the South-Western Sewage Treatment Facilities with the capacity of 330,000 cubic meters a day were being built. By 1990 the length of the street sewerage system network exceeded 3,000 km (including 178 km of tunnel sewer collectors), the total capacity of the city sewage treatment facilities reached 2,200,000 cubic meters a day, and 342,000 cubic meters a day came from suburban areas (75% of the sewers are purified). In 2001 St. Petersburg the water disposal system comprised 196.4 km of deep-laid tunnel sewer collectors, with 6,169.9 km of the sewerage network in the city and 1,315.5 km of the sewerage network in the suburbs. St. Petersburg sewerage system is composite: a combined sewerage system covers the two thirds of the city territory, a completely separate sewage system covers one third of the city territory. The sewerage system in Kolpino, Pushkin, Sestroretsk is completely separate, in Petrodvorets and Lomonosov it is combined, and composite in Kronstadt.

I. A. Bogdanov. Catherine II, Empress
Rizhsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city
Volkhonskoe Freeway/Saint Petersburg, city
Выборгская сторона
Public Lavatory
Water Supply Services
City Duma
Leningrad Soviet