By Matthias Hitzel
It was winter in the Caucasus region and an ice storm hit Batumi heavily. The year was 2018 and the overhead electricity lines collapsed, and the city of 250,000 inhabitants, located at the Black Sea coast in Western Georgia, was out of electricity for a full week. As the director of the local television was preparing the agenda for the next day TV news an old thought came up to her mind: For how long people will be out of water? She quickly checked her agenda and realized something strange: nobody mentioned problems with the water supply system – the opposite, people mentioned to be actually impressed that the water supply was continuing! How come? As faster as the thought came up in her mind it faded away. It was an old problem from the difficult not so long ago past when the deteriorated Soviet water supply and wastewater system in Batumi, being fully abandoned, did not function.
Since 2010, everybody in Batumi is supplied with uninterrupted, reliable and high-quality water. The non-functional wastewater treatment plant that released all wastewater untreated into the Black Sea was replaced by an award winning new and modern wastewater treatment plant that purifies the wastewater before it is released to the Black Sea, hence dramatically contributing to the Black Sea water quality and the revival of biodiversity.
The newly established municipal water utility is managing to control and reduce water losses. The MACS consultant statement “the construction of a new infrastructure is easy, compared to operate and maintain the new facilities,” was broadcasted and a new concept of sustainable managing was being introduced in the region. The qualified team of the water utility, Batumi Tskali – Batumi Water - applying modern technologies and following a very clear customer focus did a great job. More than 75% of the water that is produced reaches the citizens now and elevates Batumi on a level of France or the UK.
MACS is assisting the municipality of Batumi and the municipal utility Batumi Tskali since 2005 and alongside an over EUR 160 million investment program in the framework of the German-Georgian Financial Cooperation, through KfW Development Bank and co-financing of the European Union. Broadcast good news makes everybody proud and happy including us, at MACS.
The water supply of Choma was initially based on the two surface water resources Muzuma Dam with lake (completed 1967, 18 km from the town centre) and Choma Dam. One of the challenges SWSC is facing is inadequate infrastructure due to its old age and increased demand for water and sewerage services, due to population growth and increased commercial activities. However, the main problems are under-performance of water sources and dilapidation of existing infrastructure on one side, and thus commercial and apparent water losses (together non-revenue water, NRW) on the other side, compromising the overall water supply provision in Choma. This contrasts with the rapid growth in demand due to high population growth. Reducing NRW will only address the water deficit in the short term. The high number of low-income households live in peri-urban areas where there are poor water supply and sanitation services, and sewer systems are non-existent.
The objectives of the component of the project include the improvement of water resources efficiency, improvement of access to drinking water and strengthening of the climate resilience of the target group, while also improving the resilience in water supply through innovative climate adaptation measures and preventive planning of ground and surface water management in the face of the fast-growing population and tourism.
MACS participates in this Project as Minor Consortium Member next to Posch & Partners (Lead) and NIRAS A/S, mainly focusing on th eImplementation of the Accompanying Measures for O&M and ESHS.
Harald Valdix
Senior Operations & Maintenance Consultant
Harald Valdix
Senior Operations & Maintenance Consultant
Harald is a Technical Engineer in Wastewater Technology, with a post-graduate degree from the Technological University Merseburg, Germany. He used to be a technical utility director for over 20 years and also worked as an operations engineer. Altogether, he has over 25 years of professional experience in the water supply and wastewater sectors.
In his work, Harald focuses on operations and maintenance procedures, manuals and workflow analysis, with special attention directed to improvements in the management of technical water and wastewater facilities.
Harald has excellent communication skills in German as well as English and works well in international and interdisciplinary teams.