Issue 2. Water

I visited a water treatment plant near Ukraine’s Chornomorsk port on the Black Sea, as part of a long-running research project on water infrastructure in times of war. Olena, an operator at the plant, was my guide. Exploring the cycle of wastewater came with unexpected beauty: a myriad of flowers and a chance to think about the deeper connections between life, water, mankind and the environment.

Water is life. The statement is so banal it sounds like a truism. But in fact too much water, such as flash floods, represents a threat; only 0.5% of the earth’s water is available freshwater, the rest is undrinkable, like salty ocean water, water trapped underground, or found in glaciers. The real relationship between water and human beings is more ambivalent. And this ambivalence reveals the existential connection between water and populations. Because it can mean both life and death, water had to be mastered by people.

The timeline of modernity is of course marked by how societies have transformed the hydric environment: by digging canals in Mesopotamia, building water mills and later, hydroelectric plants, to use the energy of rivers, or the cooling property of water harnessed for nuclear power. But even more fundamental is how the management of water — including clean water — structures our lives.

In his book Water. A biography the historian Giulio Boccaletti argues that the domestication of water has actually been the main driver of social institutions throughout history. Being surrounded by moving water in the form of rising ocean waters, flooding rivers, unreliable rainfalls, inhospitable marshlands, has led people throughout history to create institutions. Political and economic institutions make it possible to transform that environment for safe use and consumption. Yes, ‘water is life’, but clean and safe water is a feature of human society.

What is clean water? The answer appears simple. Isn’t water clean when it’s drinkable, purified of any ‘external’ particles, pollutants and ‘dirt’? But potable water must contain all sorts of nutrients that come from the earth: salt and minerals. Also, two of the most effective means of purifying water are sand and coal. In Ukraine’s pre-war Donetsk, where coal mines operated in the middle of the city, a thin layer of anthracite coal dust covered buildings and streets. Cleaning this dirt from floors and windows was a constant household chore. At the same time, if you place a lump of activated charcoal (meaning it has been made porous through extreme heat) — in a jug of water, it will absorb impurities. If coal is both dust and a filter, what do we mean by clean, in particular clean water?

The Russian army systematically destroyed critical infrastructure when it besieged Ukrainian cities like Mariupol, Volnovakha, and Chernihiv in February-March 2022, setting off a domino-effect of urban collapse: no power meant no water, no heating, and no sewage treatment. People who experienced these breakdowns recall how they collected precious water from melting snow, puddles under broken pipes, and even from their apartments’ radiator systems. “It could cause health problems, but so can artillery fire”, one woman said impassively, when I asked about water hygiene concerns. She was an accountant at the local Mariupol water supplier. The water wasn’t drinkable by any UN or national standards, but it was clean enough.

These accounts of searching for drinking water stick in my mind as I carry out research across Ukraine on how water infrastructure systems adapt to war — a project I started after the conflict broke out in 2014 in the Donbas. I investigated how one company, Water of Donbas, managed to supply water across the frontline. It made me wonder: what is clean water? Who (or what) determines when water is sufficiently clean? Is cleaning water a dirty job? Is dirty water bad?

To find out more, in June 2024 I visited some dirty water experts: the 33 technicians and engineers of a mid-size wastewater treatment plant in the Odesa region, treating the sewage from the port city of Chornomorsk.

Chornomorsk is draped along the coast, one of Odesa’s two ports braving the risk of Russian missile strikes for the transport of Ukraine’s valuable grain and vegetable oil across the Black Sea. It is a working-class place of industries, warehouses, cranes and docks. Dotted with cafés, the beachfront promenade had been designed for leisure. Following the February 2022 full scale Russian invasion, local people gathered there to fill defensive sandbags and watch the horizon for silhouettes of enemy ships. In the Black Sea, the 2022 Russian attack had taken the form of a (failed) landing near Odesa. Chornomorsk’s strategic role in international trade makes it a significant place to investigate how a centralized wastewater treatment adapts to the circumstances of war, and what clean water might mean.

Chornomorsk Vodokanal (“Chornomorsk water works”) is the municipal public company that operates the complete water cycle for the city, from urban water supply to collecting sewage and treating it. In Ukraine, wastewater treatment is still a luxury. Pre-invasion, only half of the population benefited from it, according to UNICEF. Two-thirds of sewage in Ukraine is insufficiently treated before being discharged. The war has made things worse. An estimated twelve sewage plants have been destroyed. Any breakdown of wastewater treatment swiftly creates the risk of a public health disaster, with raw sewage flowing into the environment.

The Chornomorsk Vodokanal wastewater treatment plant is located on the outskirts of the city, between steppe-like fields and the Black Sea. At the entrance of the facility, the smell of sewage overwhelms that of the sea. As I walk through the gates onto the territory of the plant, I discreetly breathe through my mouth to limit the pungent exhalations. But what I see is not what I expected. The 12 hectares devoted to sewage treatment offer an explosion of color. Lilies, irises, purslane, cornflowers, zinnias, delphinium grow in dense flower beds. Hibiscus, juniper, succulent plants and pine trees offer shade in nuances of green. Roses larger than my two fists border the paths throughout the territory. Their bushes grow high, reminding me of Alice in Wonderland needing a stepladder to paint the Queen’s roses in the Disney cartoon. In places, the vegetation is so lush that the buildings are hidden from view. “It looks like a tropical forest,” I cry out.

Olena, my guide, is a wastewater treatment plant operator. She’s trained in chemistry and biology, with twenty years of expertise. Her job is to oversee every stage of the long treatment process: the gradual purification of the flow of feces, household chemicals, oils, greases and runoffs from the streets takes place before the treated water is released into the environment. “Follow me and you’ll understand”, she says with a smile and a hint of mystery.

Olena takes charge of my initiation into cleaning water. I follow her emerald shirt, fiery hair and bright red nail polish. The territory is spread out. Whereas a water pumping facility fits into one building, cleaning dirty water requires space, 12 hectares of land in fact. Wastewater treatment facilities are expansive, the technological system, with its different stages, requires land that’s open to the air and the sun. Cleaning dirty water also requires expertise, human involvement by trained specialists before the water is “given back” to nature. Geographers who study water refer to this as “hydrosocial” territories and cycles. The hydrosocial approach perceives water, humans, hardware and the environment as a single body rather than as distinct interacting parts. Social context, political and economic conditions, as well as the physical environment holistically shape the perceptions and representations we have of water. So, to understand what “clean water” is, we need to understand the hydrosocial cycle.

Olena is the indispensable mediator between water, hardware mechanics and the environment — at every step of the process. She accompanies me through the territory, pointing out the installations. First, a large, elevated concrete block, “the bar and grit screening stage”. The dirty water is collected from urban sewerage. It is pumped through a succession of grids that sieve out the larger detritus such as pieces of wood, metal, beer bottle caps, wrappers, and then the smaller ones — all the solids that are flushed through toilets, street drains, factory drains and slip through the gullies into the urban wastewater pipes to the treatment plant. Removing them first protects the pumps and machinery.

Relieved of the larger detritus, the sewage is then pumped into a large basin — it looks like a large round swimming pool — called a clarifier. This is the second stage. It calls on the laws of physics. The flow sends solid waste to the bottom, leaving clearer water on top. Here, mastering the dynamics of flow and centrifugal energy is key: Olena monitors the speed of the flow, which determines the sinking process. The sediments of solid waste are called sludge. These are removed on a regular basis to keep the water clear above.

Wastewater’s economic and environmental quality is complex. Normal urban waste is produced by households in the course of ordinary economic activity. Industrial waste is different. It requires specific treatment. New industries that developed after Ukraine’s market-driven agricultural sector expanded in recent decades have put the filtering process in Chornomorsk under strain. Ukraine’s leap in grain production in the mid-2000s came with an exponential growth in the production of sunflower, corn, and linseed oil.

Pre-war, Ukraine supplied about half of the world’s sunflower oil. The process of extracting oil from seeds generates pollutants that “ordinary” household water treatment plants are not equipped to treat well. “These factories produce large amounts of pollutants that are poured into the drain that is meant for ordinary urban wastewater”, Ihor, a manager at the Chornomorsk Vodokanal, tells me. The factories should, by law, invest into localized treatment systems. But forcing them to do this involves local politics.

Since Ukraine’s 2014 decentralization reform, 60% of income tax revenue is devolved to the municipal level, so important taxpayers have political and economic clout.

Like many water suppliers in Ukraine, Chronomorsk Vodokanal is a municipal public company, owned by the municipal council, which appoints management and controls strategic development plans. It has to bow to council decisions, where large local industries have representatives or allies. From there they can try to exercise control over public municipal companies such as Chornomorsk Vodokanal, and more generally, public services.

Still, Chornomorsk Vodokanal is fighting back. Decentralization has also offered more avenues for the public and civil society to push back against economic powerhouses. The company has successfully pushed through prosecution and fines for some of the polluters, while also negotiating with them to find sustainable solutions. “We adjust,” says Ihor, “but the fact remains that industrial waste should be handled differently, and that’s also part of EU integration”.

Still, the EU may be a debatable model when it comes to regulating economic interests and the common good. An imbalance between powerful private economic actors and weaker public regulators and controllers plays out not only in Ukraine, with an impact on water quality. Even France’s economically liberal-minded president Macron recognized in 2020 when he announced Covid restrictions that some public services should be kept “outside the laws of the market”, and placed under public control. Decades of market competition in (previously) public services sectors that were privatized have been detrimental to human quality of life, says a 2020 UN report. In Europe, there’s been talk of “water insurgencies” through citizen mobilization.

Back in Chornomorsk, after the mechanical stage of filtration, water is treated by bacteria. Clarified wastewater flows into large rectangular ‘aeration’ basins enriched with oxygen. They are shallow and very large so as to capture as much air as possible, thus “aeration”. Olena explains the process, with references to the Mendeleev table: “The bacteria develop in the presence of oxygen supplied from the air to the aeration tank by pumps. This converts ammonium nitrogen into nitrite and nitrate over time. This is the nitrification process. But our company is working on introducing an additional denitrification system that will allow nitrates to be converted into gaseous nitrogen and water. This ensures a better treatment of wastewater before it is discharged into the Black Sea”.

In short, given time, bacteria transform harmful nitrates into gas which can be released into the air. “This stage is essential, so we have to carefully monitor that the oxygen level is just right to balance the bacteria”. After that, the water is once more processed through several more clarifiers, to sort out the sludge.

“So that’s it, then, the water is clean?” I ask. Not quite. Making clean water takes time because physics and biology need to do their thing: the filtration takes about 24 hours. Cleansing can’t be rushed.

By now, the wastewater in the second and third clarifier basins doesn’t smell at all. It is tested to check that it is purified to the right norms — for now, those set by Ukraine, but as the plant manager tells me, they are striving for EU norms. This water can be used for irrigation, for industrial needs. The water is disinfected with sodium hypochlorite, which is similar to chlorine: mixed with water it releases an acid that deactivates bacteria, viruses, fungi and other pathogens. The water is then released into the Black Sea, just a few hundred meters south.

As we walk through the territory, I note again the contrast between the lush nature and the visibly old installations. The plant was built in 1977. The encasings are made of concrete that protects from seeping into the environment, though other parts look run down. In Ukraine, a majority of water supply and treatment facilities are in urgent need of repair after decades of under-investment. But the wear of decades-old installations is not just a Ukrainian problem. In fact, many wastewater plants in the USA and in Europe are just as old,and those in poorer parts of the world struggle more, raising fundamental questions about investment models, environmental sustainability, and governance.

Still on my tour with Olena, I see a heap of old rusting pipes in a corner. “The pump graveyard”, I joke. Olena frowns. “No, of course not. Those are reserves. We keep them for spare parts. Especially with the war, procurement can be complicated.” Russia’s war hasn’t made upkeep any easier for Chornomorsk Vodokanal. After the large-scale invasion, Russian attacks damaged or destroyed facilities. An estimated 50% have been affected, according to the Ukrainian association of water suppliers, Ukrvodokanalekologia. The war has also caused a decline in water quality overall. It also disrupted habitual supply chains for spare parts, especially in the eastern and south-eastern parts of the country, where much of the local suppliers were located. Repairs rely on the technicians’ expertise. On the job for decades, their knowledge is the technical memory of the infrastructure.

One of Chornomorsk Vodokanal’s employees was mobilized last spring, despite the city council’s efforts to negotiate a reserve. “He was sent to the frontline with the map of our water network in his head”, his colleagues tell me. The war has complicated the work of Chornomorsk Vodokanal in other ways too. The water sources through a 25 kilometer canal, a dangerous pathway vulnerable to Russian drone and missile strikes as it is located near a strategic route. Port installations, silos, warehouses, power stations have been damaged or destroyed. A main pipe broke under a missile attack. Generators the size of a small cabin protect key installations. If the sewage cycle were to break down, the seepage of wastewater would quickly lead to pollution and epidemics.

But the Chornomorsk plant has adapted. When the bombings began in April 2022, Olena first wondered how she could handle the fear. “But then you get used to it, I go to work, my younger son goes to school.” She says that thinking about innovations helps manage the stress of war. “I spent many evenings reading scientific literature on wastewater treatment, and I try to implement some ideas here. It keeps me looking ahead.”

The wastewater treatment plant was equipped with diesel generators, protected by concrete walls and, for everyday energy efficiency, a novel system of solar energy provision. The installation of panels is offered for free by a Ukrainian solar energy provider, and the wastewater utility buys this electricity at an 8% discount rate compared to the traditional provider. This means autonomy and economy.

Olena takes me to the last concrete casings. The size of a swimming pool, they contain what looks like dry mud. It’s in fact sewage sludge, the byproduct of wastewater treatment. The sludge has to be dewatered, dried, and somehow destroyed or reused. Here it is being transformed by exposure to the sun. “We’re experimenting with sludge composting, it’s a complex process that takes another four months, to extract the bad components and keep the beneficial ones”, she explains.

Usually, sludge is incinerated, which causes pollution, or it is spread over large fields, which can contaminate the environment. (I visited another sewage plant in Chernivtsi, where the sludge was inching dangerously towards a nearby river….). Using sludge as fertilizer is a common process in many countries. It has its downsides, as it can’t be rid of “forever chemicals” that can’t be degraded. At the same time, the water treatment plant and local partners have been planning experimental techniques to transform sludge into valuable humus. Humus is a major component of soil fertility, it retains water, but also allows air to penetrate into the soil, and it acts as a purifier. Over-exploitation depletes soil of humus, in Ukraine and the world over. “We hope that through our research and experimentation, sludge can become humus one day”, Olena points out.

“But what about the flowers?” I ask, still intrigued by the lush, multicolored garden. Olena has an explanation. In the course of their experimentation with compost and humus, the teams spread water, compost, and humus-in-the-making on the plants “to see how it works”. To some, the water that comes out of the wastewater treatment cycle might not seem potable, but it is beneficial. The cycle at the Chornomorsk Vodokanal treatment plant shows how humans, water, and earth merge into one.

It gets me thinking: human — humus — humility are all words that share the same roots. In 1948, the Romanian essayist Niculae Herescu reflected on that same etymology, and called for a new kind of humanism, made of humility towards the environment. Creating a cycle that returns to the earth, the process of wastewater treatment involving the sun, air, human expertise and soil, says something about our holistic connection with the environment, including in times of war.

The research for this article was conducted as part of the LimSpaces project, financed jointly by the French and German state research agencies ANR and DFG. New York University’s Remarque Institute scholar-in-residence TEFE fellowship provided support to finalize this essay.

Illustration: Anna Ivanenko