The southern Bulgaria city of Pazardjik has a new waste-water treatment station worth 10.7 million euro. It was financed by the European Union pre-accession programme Ispa under a project managed by the Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs, the ministry said in a media statement.

The Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs fulfilled the engagements it undertook before the European Commission (EC) to complete the project by the end of August 2008 and already had the necessary document for completion of the construction. The documents were submitted to the National Construction Control Directorate on September 1. By the end of the month, the water-clearings station is expected to start operating. It will service 156 000 citizens of Pazardjik municipality. The city of Pazardjik itself has a population of about 80 000.

Pazardjik’s waste-water treatment station was one of the problematic Ispa projects, due to delays of the construction terms, but, thanks to the joint efforts of the Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs and the EC, it was saved and completed, the ministry said. The project underwent corrections two times due to various circumstances and the construction deadline was prolonged three times; two heavy floodings also caused problems and damages that had to be fixed.