Photo: www.varna.bg
- Between 6 and 8 thousand cubic meters of heavily polluted fecal water are poured every day into Varna Lake from a broken pipeline
- The pipe was not dug into the lake bed as envisaged in the project for its construction worth 5 million euros.
- BGN 1.3 million are needed for the repairs but it is not clear who will do it or when.
All wastewater from the fecal sewerage of Varna’s Asparuhovo neighborhood with over 27,000 inhabitants has been flowing uncontrollably into Varna Lake for months. This was shown by an inspection of “Dnevnik” following a signal for accident with the underwater pipeline which connects the neighborhood with the wastewater treatment plant in the village of Topoli. Due to the divergent information provided by the institutions involved in the case, the exact level of the pollution remains a mystery. The reasons that led to it – too.
The owner of the pipeline is the Municipality of Varna and its operator is the local water supply and sewage company (ViK – Varna). According to its director Valentin Valkanov, the amount of fecal water that flows into Varna Lake is between 6 and 8 thousand cubic meters per day. Information about
how long the pollution lasts
is rather contradictory.
Valkanov explained before “Dnevnik” that the accident was noticed in October 2019. According to him, the accident became visible only when flocks of glaruses (Larus argentatus) began to gather in a section of the lake due to the sudden accumulation of a large quantity of fish.
However, the local administration in Varna claims otherwise – that the pollution started much earlier. “Information about a defect in the sewage water transporting pipeline was submitted by “ViK-Varna” OOD on August 20, 2019” – they announced from the Municipality in response to questions asked by “Dnevnik”.
A third version, completely different from the previous two, has the Ministry of Environment and Water. In a written answer to the questions asked, they said that they had no information about the exact date on which the accident occurred. It became obvious only when it was established that the fecal water from the pumping installation in the Asparuhovo neighborhood did not reach at all the wastewater treatment plant of Varna in the village of Topoli. It is not clear from the answers of the eco-ministry who exactly found out that something was wrong with the pipe crossing the lake.
Again in response to questions asked by “Dnevnik”, from the eco-ministry they admitted that they don’t know the amount of sewage water that had been poured into Varna Lake since the beginning of the accident. And so,
the level of pollution remains unclear or is kept secret.
The level can be indirectly assessed from data indicated in a report of the Regional Health Inspectorate from 2019 concerning the purity of sea water and bathing conditions in Varna Bay in 2019. Here is what it says:
“The project ‘Transformation of the wastewater treatment plant in Asparuhovo neighborhood into a pumping station and construction of a transport pipeline’ solved a major problem related to the pollution of Varna Lake. The old facility (waste water treatment plant, author’s note) that had been in operation since 1964, and the technology it was working according to, were for mechanical wastewater treatment without additional biological treatment. They were discharged into Varna Lake and this affected the quality of its waters and hence of the entire bay.”
In other words, after the transformation of the treatment plant in the Asparuhovo neighborhood into a pumping station, its fecal water was no longer treated even mechanically. This was to take place at the Varna Wastewater Treatment Plant on the other side of the lake, where their biological treatment was also carried out. After the rupture of the transport pipeline, the condition from 1964 was practically “restored” – the entirely untreated fecal water of the neighborhood started to flow directly into the lake again and from there to
pollute the whole bay with its beaches.
Nearly 5mln Euro have been spent on the project “Transformation of the wastewater treatment plant in Asparuhovo neighborhood into a pumping station and construction of a transport pipeline”. About 75% of them are European grant under the ISPA program and the pipeline is an element of the Integrated Water Cycle Project of Varna.
The procedure for awarding and implementing the public procurement for construction began in the period 2005-2009 when the Minister of Environment and Water was Dzhevdet Chakarov. The construction works were carried out by the Greek company SFELINOS S.A. On September 29, 2011 the facility was opened by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, after it was accepted by the State Acceptance Commission which included representatives of RDNSK – Varna, the municipal administration, the Ministry of Environment and Water, the Executive Agency “Maritime Administration” and others.
Now, nine years and 5mln Euro later, the pipeline is once again pouring the fecal water of the Asparuhovo neighborhood into the lake. As in 1964,
the versions of the reasons that led to the accident,
which are reported by the Municipality of Varna and the local ViK company, are completely different. And this makes it impossible to answer the question of who is responsible for the pollution.
The municipality explained for “Dnevnik” that it was a “defect in a transport water pipeline” and not an accident.
However, the director of “ViK – Varna” Valentin Valkanov has a completely different version of the reasons that led to the pollution. “At first we thought it could be a flange, they put iron bolts instead of aluminum, anything is possible … he said. When we found out that something had happened, the site was still under warranty. So we called those who did it. But it turned out that the owner of the company had died.”
After that, Vulkanov said that three inspections were made on the site of the accident, but they were unsuccessful since in the autumn there was no visibility in the water of the lake. “We let divers three times until we found the reason on New Year’s Eve,” said the director of ViK-Varna. A ship seems to have broken the pipe because it is not there at all. At 50-60 m there is no pipe at all.
We assume that a ship tore it apart because nothing else is possible”.
At the end of March, the specialized maritime publication maritime.bg, which first reported the accident, quoted its unnamed sources as confirming the version of a ship accident. According to them, soon after opening of the pipeline in 2011, a vessel that had an accident in Varna Lake was forced to drop an anchor. The anchor became entangled in the pipeline and lifted it a few feet from the bottom. However, the fatal damage was caused last year when another ship moving within the marked waterway in the lake completely cut the sewer pipe.
However, such an incident could probably not have occurred if an important condition, already in the name of the project, had been met: “Transformation of the wastewater treatment plant in Asparuhovo neighborhood into a pumping station and construction of a transport pipeline
beneath the Varna Lake bed“.
The check of “Dnevnik” showed that the non-fulfillment of this condition did not remain a secret for the institutions involved in the implementation of the project. However, so far none of them has reacted.
In response to the question how the pipe is positioned – “under” or “over” the bed of Varna Lake, its owner – Varna Municipality, answered that during the underwater inspections and with sonar it was found that certain sections of the pipeline in question are over the bed of Varna Lake.
According to the Ministry of Environment and Water, which is the contracting authority of the project, “under the bed” of the lake only 2 km of the total length of the pipe (3 km – author’s note) were laid. It is exactly this that makes it difficult to determine the exact location of the accident. From there, however, they made an important clarification. “The localized section (of the accident) is “in the area of signal buoys 121-124 of navigable canal No1 in Varna Lake” the ministry wrote in an e-mail sent to “Dnevnik”. Translated into popular language, this means
that the pipeline crossed the route of the ships
passing through the lake. And this explains why, according to the assignment for its construction, it had to be dug beneath the lake bed.
The suspicions that the pipe was vulnerable after this condition was not met are based on the answers to the questions of “Dnevnik” sent to the Ministry of Transport on the same occasion. The answer reads as follows: “We inform you that the navigation charts for the port of Varna duly declare Area 323 prohibited for fishing and anchoring, which covers the length of the pipeline and the safety zone on its both sides.”
Meanwhile, since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Environment and Water has imposed on “ViK – Varna”
monthly fine in the amount of BGN 44.4 thousand
until the repair of the broken pipe and stopping of the contamination it causes. The sanction has been appealed in court, but there is still no decision on the appeal.
The local administration in Varna is obviously also in no hurry to repair the pipeline. When asked by “Dnevnik” what measures have been taken to solve the problem, they listed in detail what has happened so far and stated that they intend to file
a lawsuit against the company that laid the pipe over the lake bed.
“After receiving the necessary information, a letter was sent to the contractor SFELINOS SA to take urgent measures to eliminate the defect that occurred within the warranty period”, according to information sent to “Dnevnik”. The letter explicitly stated that if “no actions are taken, the costs for removing the defect will be claimed from the company in court.”
According to the Municipality of Varna, the estimated value of the repairs that it as the owner must carry out to stop the flow of fecal water in Varna Lake is BGN 1.3 million. A request for their provision has been sent to the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works but there is no answer from them. After securing the money for the upcoming repairs
a contractor with expertise in underwater construction must be selected.
However, none of the three companies has such an expertise – “Infra Expert”, “Hydrostroy and DZZD “”Cherno More 2016. With them, after winning a public procurement, the Municipality of Varna has signed a framework agreement for repair of elements of the technical infrastructure. The ongoing procedure for solving this problem has no final term or deadline.
The fecal waters of a whole neighborhood continue to flow in Varna Lake also without a term – 6-8 thousand cubic meters every day. “It’s about
extremely dangerous ecological process”,
says marine ecologist Arman Sarkisyan, quoted by Maritime.bg. “Varna Lake, although connected to the Black Sea, is an extremely vulnerable water basin. We have reached the edge of its workload, and such an incident puts enormous additional pressure on its fragile ecosystem.”
