Small water management companies are transferring this foreign experience to Lithuania to “wrap” the suburbs with water supply networks and drainage routes. This experiment is paying off – hundreds of people want to join.
Here in the Kaunas district, the residents themselves expressed their desire to connect to the centralized sewage management networks in the cities of Ežerelis and Vilkijas, where new sewage network routes will be built. The existing networks will be reconstructed in the town of Lapia, in the villages of Raudondvaris and Bubiai. Residents are also waiting for new drainage networks, which are planned to be installed in the period of 2024-2025.
According to Andrias Dzevyzys, director of “Giraitės vandenų”, for the convenience of the residents, 1.2 km of rainwater networks have been installed in Neveronis. During the rain and low rainfall, the residents will have the opportunity to drain rainwater, thus avoiding the problem of basements and yards being blocked. Similar problems have been resolved in the yards of apartment buildings in Karmėlava. Two water treatment stations were also built in Pagirai and Urnėžiai.
“Every year, the Kaunas district adds 6,000 people. population. They are being built in satellite settlements of Kaunas. The young generation has money, they want comfort”, – this is how A. Dzevyžis described the settlers.
The situation is similar around Molėti. “Molėtai vanduo” plans to allocate 1.4 million for water pipeline routes in 2023-2027. euros. The money is allocated from the budgets of Molėtai municipality and Molėtai waters. The priority of where to build the tracks is the wishes of the residents themselves, and the order itself is determined by a fairly simple criterion – how much investment is needed to connect one user.
According to the manager of Molėtai vanduo, Gintautas Maniušis, water supply companies could allocate even more funds for these needs if 2 percent. last year’s income should not be accumulated as a guarantee fund, but simply invested in network development and reconstruction. “Our company alone could invest an additional 25 thousand in this way. euros per year”, mentioned G. Maniušis.
And here in Ukmerge, the decision on where to build the tracks was determined by the demands of the “gardeners”. Collective gardens have gradually become part of the city, so the engineering networks of the nearest areas are also connected to the city networks.
According to the deputy director of “Ukmergės vandenys” Stanislavas Gilvydis, nearby collective gardens are becoming entire settlements, so there is a need to invest more in the infrastructure of these areas – to maintain roads, solve problems of water supply, sewage disposal or waste collection.
“Water routes have already been built in “Rasa”, “Dukstynėlė”, “Pušelė”. As more and more young families settle in collective gardens, “we will rush to the most densely populated streets” with the tracks, says S. Gilvydis.
In the opinion of Broniaus Miežutavičius, president of the Lithuanian Water Suppliers Association, municipalities should prepare plans for when and what areas to “encircle” with water supply networks. This is an important factor for living in the regions.
