Court orders Odesa City Council to repair pumping station

The Odesa District Administrative Court found that the executive committee of the city council had unlawfully done nothing to restore the operation of the Chornomorka-2 sewage pumping station.

Thus, according to the press service of the Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office, the court ordered the executive committee to take measures to restore the work of the pumping station.

The prosecutor's office proved that due to the lack of maintenance for several years, the station was in a faulty condition, had no responsible persons and did not fulfill its functions. This led to systematic pollution of the beach and the Black Sea waters with sewage, which posed a threat to environmental safety.

In accordance with the court decision, the executive committee transferred the pumping station to the balance sheet of the utility company, which must ensure its proper maintenance, repair and operation.

In March, members of the commission on housing and communal services appealed to the Department of Municipal Economy of Odesa City Council to start negotiations with the Tairova village council to pay for the work on cleaning the discharges of the Chornomorka-2 sewage pumping station.

The deputies insisted that the wastewater is formed from the discharges of private households, some of which belong to the Odesa community and some to the Tairova community.

Back in 2023, the State Ecological Inspectorate of the Southwestern District, near Chornomorka Beach in Odesa, constantly recorded exceedances of the standardized values for suspended solids, total iron, ammonium nitrogen, nitrite, and BOD5.

Inspection specialists conducted an inspection and found that wastewater from the Chornomorka-2 sewage pumping station (SPS) flows into the stormwater collector and then to the sandy area of Chornomorka beach and the Black Sea.

At the same time, it was found out that the Chornomorka-2 sewage treatment plant and its networks are not on the balance sheet of any enterprise, no control over the condition of the equipment and operation of the sewage treatment plant is carried out, and there is no design and estimate documentation for the sewage treatment plant and sewage networks in Chornomorka village.

The Odesa City Council and Odesa District State (Military) Administration had to determine the balance sheet holder of the Chornomorka-2 sewage treatment plant by November 2022. However, they failed to do so.

Кирило Бойко