The sixth phase of a process to upgrade the drinking water supply and wastewater management infrastructure serving the city of Poznań – capital of the Wielkopolskie region in north-western Poland – and the surrounding area is to be implemented with support from EU funding. It should improve water safety for thousands of residents and reduce environmental pollution.
- 18 September 2019
Work under phase six includes modernising the central and left bank wastewater treatment plants and 6.7 km of the existing sewerage network. The Wiśniowa water treatment station, which serves around a third of Poznań’s 550 000-strong population will also be modernised.
Construction of drinking water infrastructure of a total length of 2.7 km will give an additional 66 people access to the network, while laying 126 km of sewerage piping will provide connections for 14 201 inhabitants.
A range of potential benefits
As well as increasing connections to the water distribution and wastewater collection networks, the project has the potential to provide a number of other benefits. These include ensuring an efficient supply of safe drinking water for the inhabitants of Poznań, Poland’s fifth-largest city, thereby minimising water-borne threats to human health.
Moreover, the project should cut environmental pollution by lowering the risk of discharge of untreated wastewater into the 795 km river Warta, on which Poznań stands, as well as into its tributaries and the numerous lakes in and around the city, including Kiekrz, Malta, Strzeszyn and Rusałka. Modernising the water supply and wastewater infrastructure could also prevent losses from the drinking water network and infiltration of clean water into the sewage system, which can make treatment of sewage less effective and cause networks to overflow.
EU support for all phases
The preceding five phases of the project were all implemented with EU support under the 2007-2013 programming period. The most recent was completed in 2015.
The current phase is being carried out under the 2014-2020 programming period and has a total budget of in the region of EUR 109 million. Of this, in excess of EUR 55 million is supplied through the EU’s Cohesion Fund via the Infrastructure and Environment Operational Programme. The project comes under the Operational Programme’s priority axis related to environmental protection, including adaptation to climate change.
More widely, the Infrastructure and Environment Programme comprises measures to support Poland’s moves towards a more competitive and low-carbon economy and to improve living conditions for people throughout the country. Two key objectives are to install, extend or modernise 6 500 km of wastewater infrastructure and to build or modernise 120 wastewater treatment plants. Globally, the budget for the Programme comes to some EUR 32 billion, of which the EU is supplying more than EUR 27 billion from its Cohesion and European Regional Development Funds.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Upgrade of water and wastewater management for protection of water sources in Poznań and the surrounding area – Phase VI” is EUR 108 578 252, with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 55 402 233 through the “Infrastructure and Environment” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period.