The sewage pumping station on Daugavgrīvas Street carries about half of Riga's sewage. The capacity has remained the same as the previous station, but its special feature is energy efficiency. About 300,000 cubic meters of potable water which was used to cool the old station will not be needed anymore.
The new plant will also consume at least twice as little electricity and will be able to continue operating in the event of power cuts. This was not possible in the old plant.
"If there was no electricity in a town or part of a town, the pumping station simply stopped and the wastewater was not pumped to the treatment plant. And in the long term, this could have threatened to flood the streets of Riga with sewage," explained Kaspars Birkhāns, Head of Sewerage Network Pumping Station Service at "Rīgas ūdens" (Riga Water).
During heavy rains, untreated sewage had to be discharged into the environment up to three times a year. This year, due to climatic conditions, it is happening more often, said the head of the service.
The new pumping station was built next to the old one. In the place of the old one there is currently an empty space. But it will not stay that way - there are plans to build water storage tanks where, in the event of heavy rain, water will accumulate and the release of untreated sewage into the environment will be further reduced.
Krišjānis Krūmiņš, Chairman of the Board of "Rīgas ūdens" Ltd., said that the next step is to double the capacity of the Daugavgrīva sewage treatment plant: "The next big step for us is to expand the capacity of the Daugavgrīva sewage treatment plant, where all the sewage is pumped from the plant. So we will double the capacity of this plant to deal with the rainwater that gets mixed with the sewage into the Daugava during heavy rains."
The new sewage pumping station has been in test operation for half a year, during which time it has proven its effectiveness, even exceeding expectations.
"This project is part of, if I may say so, the future development to make us much more environmentally friendly and much more efficient," said Viesturs Zeps, Chairman of the Housing and Environment Committee of the Riga City Council.
Rīgas ūdens Ltd has developed its long-term strategy until 2040, and today's opening is one of the steps towards meeting the requirements of European directives on energy saving.
