Under the SUAL/USAID Service and in accordance with the work plan, the Kamensk-Uralsky Utilities Company has signed an agreement with Geolink Consulting for an amount of $25,290 and will also invest 20% of its own funds for introducing environmental techniques that will reduce adverse impacts on the nature complex of Iset River.
At present, project activities include designing and creating equipment. In the course of the next quarter, an automatic system “Monitoring dissolved oxygen content in aeration tanks at the sewage treatment facilities of the Kamensk-Uralsky Utilities Service will be installed with the aim of reducing nitrogen concentrations by 60% and fluorine compounds by 80% in discharged sewage.
In November 2005, this project organized an excursion to the municipal sewage treatment facilities for the students of School # 22, winners of city biology and ecology contests. A broad youth education campaign devoted to the protection of the city’s water and natural resources was launched by this project jointly with the other grantees of the environmental program: “Kamensky Brook”, School # 40, and the Ural Branch of Russia’s Socio-Ecological Union.
The local utilities service is now mastering a new subject, a PR technology to advocate a careful and economical attitude to potable water. Thus, in the middle of December, this service jointly with its partners designed a stand describing the project “A Clean River for Our Descendants” intended for the regional conference on Healthy Life. In its show entitled Panorama, the local television channel aired a report about the project’s innovations at the municipal sewage treatment facilities. The project has established good media relations and, as a result, the activities of the environmental component of the long-term integrated SUAL/USAID Program are regularly covered by the local media.
