No more sludge smell 'in 10 weeks'

In 10 weeks the latest the Chisinau folks will be spared from the smell emanated by the 40-year-old sludge at the city's waste water treatment station, promised Constantin Becciev, the director of the water and sewer utility Apa-Canal, at the City Hall's ordinary meeting on Monday, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to Becciev, there are some 80 to 90 thousand cubic meters of sludge that are still to be removed from the drying containers and then treated through implements called geotubes which will render it innocuous. Sludge from 23 hectares have been removed so far, with 11 hectares remaining, and Apa-Canal plans the work will be completed in two months. Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca declared the “countdown” could start now. With the waste water treatment station being one of Chirtoaca's key projects, he has assured the completion of the works will put and to the bad smell coming from the station, which is particularly fetid in summer months. The Chisinau waste water treatment station was put into commission in 1968 and has never undergone significant repair or modernization since. In 2008 the City Hall together with Apa-Canal started a project to solve the issue of the odor by implementing a dewatering technology known as geotube containers.