The northern capital of Russia is located on thirty-three islands. Among them, there are those that appeared naturally, and there are also artificially created by man. The latter is Bely Island.
Location
The White Island in St. Petersburg is located on the left bank, at the mouth of the Big Neva. It is extended parallel to the Kanonersky island and connected to it by a road bridge in the southeast.
Refers to the Kirovsky district of the city. There are no residential quarters, only sewage treatment plants. The free passage here is closed, and a checkpoint is installed right behind the bridge.
The island can be accessed only as part of excursions conducted by employees of the State Unitary Enterprise Vodokanal of St. Petersburg.
Island history
From the very moment of foundation in St. Petersburg, artificial land reclamation was used to create new territories for construction. Initially, this was due to marshland and flood hazard. Over time, the city needed more and more space for building new areas, building stadiums and infrastructure on the islands of St. Petersburg.
Until the middle of the last century, White Sandbank was located on the site of the White Island. The name is supposedly associated with a light shade of sand covering the coast. In 1966, the USSR Council of Ministers decided to create a full-fledged artificial island on the Neva and strengthen the coastline . Currently, its area is about 57 hectares.
Central aeration station
The main attraction of Bely Island in St. Petersburg is the Central Aeration Station. This is the first and largest complex of treatment facilities, which receives storm and sewage from several areas of the city.
Construction began in 1972, the first line was put into operation in 1978. The second line - in 1985. In 2007, the station was modernized in accordance with the requirements of the Helsinki Commission for Environmental Protection of the Baltic Sea.
The capacity of the station is 1.5 million cubic meters of water per day. It goes through several stages of purification: biological, mechanical, chemical.
Garbage is removed from wastewater: from large to small grains of sand. Organic pollutants are oxidized using activated sludge. Pure water merges into the Gulf of Finland without harming its ecological environment. Beneficial substances extracted during the cleaning process are used as fertilizers. Sludge is burned in a modern plant built in 1997 using French developments.
Petersburg is the first metropolis in the world to solve the problem of sludge destruction using an integrated approach.
In 2018, another modernization of the most powerful wastewater treatment plant in St. Petersburg on the White Island is planned.
Ecological situation
In the Kirovsky district of St. Petersburg and on Bely Island, the environmental situation is still unfavorable. Approximately 30% of harmful emissions into water are from local industrial enterprises. By air, it is among the most polluted areas of the city, along with the Frunze, Vyborg, Krasnogvardeisky. The situation in this part of the northern capital indicates the need for a responsible approach to urban ecology.