National projects in Tatarstan: how Tatarstan going to save Volga, forests and remove landfills for 5.8bn

Volga River will be rehabilitated with treatment facilities

The focus of the national project Ecology both in Tatarstan and in a number of other regions — the improvement of the Volga River. Almost the entire budget of the national project in Tatarstan will be directed for these particular purposes in 2019. According to the ministry of economy of Tatarstan (the department coordinates the implementation of national projects in the republic) of 1,9 billion rubles of the total budget, 1,856 billion rubles is the budget of the regional project “Improvement of the Volga River in the Republic of Tatarstan”. The key indicator for it is the decrease in the volume of polluted wastewater discharged to the Volga River by more than threefold, from 0,19 cubic km in 2019 to 0,06 cubic km in 2024.

In general, the activities of the project are related to the reconstruction and construction of treatment facilities. The following construction projects are planned for 2019 alone:

• construction of biological treatment facilities in Agryz district for 0,15 thousand cubic metres per day, worth 53,6 million rubles;
• construction of treatment facilities in Zainsk district for 0,6 thousand cubic metres per day, worth 87,9 million rubles;
• construction of treatment facilities in urban-type town Alekseevskoye for 1,2 thousand cubic metres per day, worth 148,3 million rubles;
• construction of surface wastewater treatment facilities for storm water discharge to Kazan water bodies in the area of the Veterinary Academy for 30 litres per second, worth 91,4 million rubles;
• reconstruction of district treatment facilities of domestic and industrial wastewater SEZ PPT Alabuga and the city of Yelabuga (1st stage) for 19,5 thousand cubic metres per day, worth 795,5 million rubles;
• construction of storm sewer in the city of Tetyushi, worth 108,8 million rubles.

Kazan sludge fields will be destroyed by the national project

At the same time, the regional project for the salvation of the Volga River provides not only the construction of facilities useful for the river, but also the closure of harmful ones. For example, in 2020 it is planned to dismantle inactive pipelines of the Lake field of the Nizhnekamsk reservoir. The cost of works in the prices of the first quarter of 2019 is 476,64 million rubles, 200 million rubles out of which RITEK JSC is ready to provide through the co-financing at its own expense.

But a much more discussed initiative is the reclamation of sludge sites of biological treatment facilities in Kazan. The estimated cost of this process will be at least 4 billion rubles until 2024. This year, the beginning of the construction of the shop for thermomechanical processing of sludge has been officially announced — it will cost 1,5 billion rubles, the construction is planned to be completed by December. The workshop will allow daily processing of 340 tons of sludge with a humidity of 96%, receiving up to 100 tonnes of granulated substance after thermoreclamation. The transition to the new technology of sludge treatment will allow to abandon the operation of sludge fields.

The direction “Reducing the negative impact of sunken ships” can be attributed to the disposal of harmful objects. The regional project provides for the extraction of 21 submerged vessels in Kuibyshev and Nizhnekamsk reservoirs within the borders of the republic by 2024.

Pure water to the districts

The second regional project of Ecology is called Pure Water, but it concerns not the purity of rivers and lakes but the purity of water consumed by the population of the republic. Key indicator: the share of the population of Tatarstan, provided with quality drinking water from centralized water supply systems, should approach almost one hundred per cent (more precisely, 97,9% by 2024).

The budget of this regional project is multiply less — in 2019, it is only 33,7 million rubles. These funds will be directed for the reconstruction of the water intake station in Bolgar for 5000 cubic metres a day. However, in general, within the framework of Pure Water, 280,2 million rubles have been allocated for the construction of purification systems (post-treatment) of drinking water supply facilities in the settlements of Tatarstan.

The “water” projects do not end there, but so far the ministry of ecology of the Republic of Tatarstan has not joined all of them. Now the application on the regional project “Preservation of unique water objects” is being under consideration. Deputy Minister of Environment of the Republic of Tatarstan Egor Tarnavskiy in February reported that this regional project will include at least 15 water objects in Tatarstan, but what exactly — still unknown.

Machinery and seeds for forests

In the context of forest fires raging in Siberia, the subproject Forest Conservation at the federal level is of great importance. In Tatarstan, the situation is much more favourable, and one key indicator of the regional project is automatically implemented — as there is no damage from forest fires in the region. Another goal of the regional project is to ensure a balance of disposal and reforestation in the ratio of 100% by 2024 (now the figure is at the level of 62%). In 2019, the budget of the regional project is 86,9 million rubles.

At the same time, in the framework of the regional project, Tatarstan is purchasing 42 units of forest fire equipment. As reported by the regional ministry of ecology this summer, among the equipment — fire tankers, forest fire and forest patrol complexes, bulldozers and crew buses. In addition, two fire-chemical stations will be created on the basis of Nurlat and Nizhnekamsk forestry enterprises.

Also, in the framework of Forest Conservation, there will be the formation of forest seed stock of up to 11,455 kg. By mid-summer, only 843 kg of forest plant seeds (7% of the plan) have been stocked, of which coniferous — 480 kg. The bulk of the seeds are planned to be stocked in the III quarter of 2019 — it is oak acorns, birch and ash seeds. In addition, the regional ministry of forestry will work on reforestation and afforestation on the area of 2470,8 hectares. The actual implementation of the campaign is already 2,315 hectares (93% of the plan).

It is interesting that the ministry places on its website extensive photo reports on how the project is being implemented in each affected forestry of the republic.

We are yet to fight with waste

Another two regional projects are associated with the actual theme of waste management. Looking ahead, we will say: none of them tells about incinerators. The project “Integrated System of Solid Municipal Waste Management” provides that the share of solid municipal waste aimed at processing in the total volume of solid municipal waste generated will approach 37% in 2019 and 99% in 2024.

To do this, already in 2019, it is necessary to create eight waste sorting stations in the region worth 3,5 million rubles, five environmental technoparks at intermunicipal landfills for the disposal of MSW (25,0 million rubles). In total, over 6 years, it is planned to put into commercial operation 23,1 million tonnes of waste and fraction utilization capacities after MSW processing and 31,7 million tonnes of MSW processing capacities by 2024.

The Clean Country regional project promises to be much more extensive. Its goal is to eliminate all revealed as of 1 January 2018 unauthorized dumps within the borders of the towns. It is planned to include measures to eliminate the objects of accumulated damage and reclamation of unauthorized landfills with an area of at least 2 hectares located within the boundaries of settlements — in Tatarstan, it is at least three landfills and four “objects of accumulated damage”.

The regional ministry of environment told that the project will include notorious the Samosyrovskaya landfill in Kazan, as well as the landfills in Tukayevsky, Menzelinsky and Nizhnekamsky districts. Three objects of accumulated damage are located in Sabinsky, Mendeleevsky and Bugulminsky districts. The cost of their reclamation is estimated at 2,6 billion rubles — this is even more than it will spend on saving the Volga River in 2019.