It is unlikely that any of us has seriously thought about where the water goes when it is poured down the sink or flushed down the toilet. What happens to the food scraps and the products of our daily activities that disappear into the pipes along with the water? Wastewater treatment today is one of those issues that requires special attention. The ecology of the modern world is so fragile and vulnerable due to the constant negative impact of human civilization on all its components that the last straw, tipping the balance in nature, can be anything. Therefore, any factor that can exacerbate negative phenomena must be taken into account and eliminated.
The work on water purification should begin in every single place, as many rivers in any region of Kyrgyzstan need it. The current state of the transboundary Naryn River is alarming. According to specialists, over the past fifty years, 40 million cubic meters of sewage have been discharged into the transboundary Naryn River.
INFORMATION: The city of Naryn (translated from Mongolian as "Sunny") is located on the banks of the river of the same name, which is one of the main tributaries of the Syr Darya River, and is the administrative center of the Naryn region and district. As of 2009, the city's population was 34,800 people. The city is situated at an altitude of 2000 meters above sea level, on the banks of the Naryn River, at the intersection of the Bishkek - Torugart highway. Naryn is located 350 km from the capital of the country, Bishkek, and 200 km from the Chinese border.
The Naryn River is the largest water artery in southern Kyrgyzstan. From the snowy peaks of the central Tien Shan, after a long journey through mountain gorges, the river breaks out into the expanses of the Fergana Valley beyond the city of Tash-Kumyr.
Along its entire course, small settlements and small towns are located on its banks. Most of the small settlements lack a waste collection and treatment system. In cities located on the banks of the river, such as Naryn, Kara-Kul, and Tash-Kumyr, the existing old sewage systems have long ceased to function and are in a deplorable state. All waste from human activities flows directly into the river. In fact, the river has become a collector for gathering human waste.
Thus, the wastewater from the city of Naryn flowing into the Naryn River is only 40% treated. This was reported to journalists during a press tour by Nazgul Minazarova, a leading specialist at the Issyk-Kul-Naryn Territorial Department of Environmental Protection. According to her, 2,400 cubic meters of wastewater flows out of the city daily. Of this, only 30-40% is treated before entering the Naryn River.
“Not all houses and farms are connected to the central sewage system. Wastewater and fecal matter flow directly into the Naryn. Even what goes through the settling tank is not properly treated. Our treatment facilities only perform mechanical cleaning: they only catch heavy objects and metals; biological treatment is not conducted,” Nazgul Minazarova said.
According to her, the treatment facilities were built in 1968 for a military settlement. Facilities for biological treatment using biofilters were also constructed, but due to climatic conditions, they could not be put into operation.
INFORMATION: If you are interested in history, you know that Europe has suffered several times from mass diseases and epidemics (plague, cholera, the Spanish flu virus). It was precisely wastewater that provoked the rapid spread of pathogenic bacteria. People dumped waste directly into the streets, creating a threat to those around them. Unfortunately, the issue of wastewater treatment is currently not given enough attention. This is because people simply do not know what threats filth poses, having only superficial information. Wastewater invariably contains biological pollutants in the form of mold and yeast fungi, eggs of worms, bacteria, mainly excreted by humans, small algae, and viruses. It is precisely because of the presence of biological pollutants that wastewater poses a significant danger to humans, plants, and animals from an epidemiological standpoint.
“The treatment facilities of the city of Naryn consist of a receiver, where about 2,000 to 2,500 cubic meters of domestic wastewater from the entire city flows daily, which is then pumped into sand traps and settling tanks. In the settling tanks, the water is only freed from solid fractions, and according to our calculations, the treated water, which is only 30% clean, is discharged into the Naryn River,” said Zamir Estebesov, an engineer at the Naryn wastewater treatment facilities.
“Previously, where the treatment facilities are located, was the edge of the city. Now the city has expanded, and when the wind blows, the smell from the treatment facilities reaches residential houses. According to the city plan, new treatment facilities were supposed to be built outside the city to the north. But the municipality does not have the funds for this,” Zamir Estebesov said.
According to him, the only treatment that the wastewater undergoes is chlorination, which is only possible in the summer.
INFORMATION: Household sewage (now more commonly referred to as domestic wastewater) consists of contaminated tap water that comes from toilets, sinks, baths, laundries, kitchens, floor washing, etc.
Household sewage has a relatively constant nature of pollution, the concentration of which mainly depends on the daily water consumption norm.
According to Zamir Estebesov, the operational life of the facility built back in 1968 has long expired and it is beyond repair. “In this regard, the municipal enterprise 'Vodokanal' has developed a technical and economic justification for the construction of a new treatment facility for 300,000 soms. According to the project, about $8 million is needed. Such funds are naturally not available in the city’s subsidized budget,” emphasized Z. Estebesov. These pipes were laid several decades ago, and since then the maximum that has been done on the main line is patching the holes that appear here with enviable regularity.
In addition, throughout the city, it is cut by small and large ravines and gullies that descend to the Naryn River. Literally all of them are used for dumping garbage, both by residents and organizations and enterprises. If you take a tour of these ravines, you can see things that would forever deter anyone from drinking water, let alone using it for household needs. Besides using the ravines for dumping garbage, residents, as well as many enterprises, build toilets on the banks, some of which direct their effluent back to the river. All these accumulated piles of garbage and who knows what else are washed into the Naryn River by rainwater during the spring and autumn periods.
It is often possible to see such a picture – at the shore, pumps are working, drawing water for drinking and household needs of the city's residents, while just a few dozen meters upstream, household sewage is being discharged into the river.
INFORMATION: According to reports from ecologists, urban wastewater ranks second among the most dangerous substances for the environment and the world's oceans, after oil. Even in small quantities, they contain many substances that promote the growth of certain plants and animals, but at the same time pose a huge threat to the entire ecosystem.
In addition to waste generated by the activities of the population and enterprises, wastewater also includes water that results from various atmospheric precipitation falling on the territory of industrial facilities and settlements.
Various organic substances contained in the effluents begin to rot upon entering water bodies, causing a deterioration in the sanitary condition of both the water bodies themselves and the surrounding air, and also become sources of the spread of pathogenic bacteria.
Therefore, the most important issues of environmental protection are wastewater disposal and treatment, which help prevent harm to public health and the ecological situation of settlements.
As noted by independent environmental safety expert Dmitry Vetoshkin, these treatment facilities do not affect biological and chemical pollutants discharged into the transboundary Naryn River because there are no aeration tanks – devices for saturating water with oxygen and active sludge, which would speed up the process of organic matter combustion; biological treatment is also absent.
“Physical treatment of domestic wastewater from solid and heavy fractions does not make the water safer. Because surfactants, which are mainly represented by detergents, pose a particular threat to the aquatic microflora of the Naryn River, and the conducted treatment does not eliminate them,” the expert emphasized.
INFORMATION: Animal pollutants can include various human and animal physiological excretions, remnants of organic tissue, sticky substances, etc., characterized by a high nitrogen content.
Biological pollutants include various fungi (mold and yeast), microorganisms, algae, and bacteria, among which there are quite a few pathogens of diseases such as paratyphoid, typhoid fever, dysentery, anthrax, etc. Such pollutants can be characteristic not only of domestic wastewater but also of some industrial effluents, for example, waste from meat processing plants, slaughterhouses, etc.
Despite the fact that the chemical composition of these pollutants is organic, the sanitary danger they create upon entering water bodies requires their classification into a separate category.
As noted by D. Vetoshkin, it would be necessary to carry out some feasible measures to enhance the existing resources if there is no possibility of building a new treatment facility. “For example, instead of discharging wastewater directly into the Naryn River, they could be passed through filtration fields – areas planted with rhizofiltration plants capable of filtering pollutants with their roots. Rhizofiltration plants can include willow, poplar, sunflower, sea buckthorn, reed, bulrush, and chiy, meaning that from the vast variety of species, suitable plants could be selected for this region,” concluded D. Vetoshkin.
INFORMATION: The composition of domestic wastewater includes the following pollutants (values are given as percentages of the total number of pollutants):
Mineral substances – 42%;
Organic substances – 58%;
Suspended settling substances – 20%;
Colloidal mixtures – 10%;
Dissolved substances – 50%.
Many city leaders, responsible to varying degrees for this problem, throw up their hands, citing the lack of money in the city budget, and “wash their hands” of finding other ways to solve this problem that do not require large investments.
As Naryn City Council deputy Maksat Joldoshbekov told journalists, the strategic development plan for the city includes the construction of new treatment facilities, but as always, the problem comes down to financing.
“The city of Naryn, like the Naryn region, is a subsidized area. We produce very little ourselves. Tax collection is very low. The preliminary cost of the treatment facilities is about 80 million soms. However, right now, in the western part of Naryn, the Aga Khan Foundation is building a university for Central Asia. They intend to build their own treatment facilities. We proposed to the mayor's office to cooperate with them and jointly build treatment facilities that meet standards. We have already approached the leadership of the Central Asian University. The lack of funding remains, and we are trying to reach out to donors, looking for resources. Everything is complicated by the fact that this problem is important not for the city, but for the river – after all, the townspeople and authorities are absolutely indifferent to what happens downstream,” emphasized Maksat Joldoshbekov.
The regional environmental protection department, seeing and understanding all the consequences that may arise over time if this issue is ignored, allocates substantial sums for the partial resolution of this problem.
However, these investments are merely “patching holes” and not solving the problem; the allocated money is spent irrationally, and the efficiency is not as high as desired. The beautiful Naryn is gradually turning into a sewage ditch, and it would be good if officials began to think about their responsibility for the future and towards future generations. Such understanding should be the foundation of our relationship with nature.