Smoke on the water

The Municipal Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment Company Warsaw City (MPWiK) has announced a tender for a project to modernize and expand the "Czajka" sewage system using thermal treatment of sewage sludge. The project falls within the framework of the "Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment in Warsaw - Phase III" program, which aims to modernize sewage treatment in the capital. The value of the tender amounts to over E70 (zł.266.9) million.

"This is the biggest project in Poland funded by a local government," says Michał Olszewski, the director of the Development Strategy and European Integration Department at the Warsaw Municipal Government Office (UMSW). "After the construction of Warsaw's second underground line, this is the biggest investment backed by the EU. In fact, funding of almost two-thirds of the whole project is supported by EU cohesion funds," he notes.

Officials are keen to emphasize the project's significance. "We are one of the few European capitals that doesn't have all of its sewage treated," says Leszek Drogosz, deputy director of the Infrastructure Department at UMSW.

The method chosen to treat the waste was fluidized bed combustion. "This is a traditional technology," says Artur Rypina, the president of MPWiK. He says that Warsaw is too big to experiment with technologies that have not been proven efficient and environmentally safe.

MPWiK has declared that the treatment plant is to be built according to ecological standards. This is partly seen as a bid to placate the residents of the nearby Choszczówka district. Meanwhile, time is running out for MPWiK, as 90 percent of the investment must be completed by the end of 2010 if it is to receive  EU funding designated for the project.