In Petrozavodsk, the main interest is to prevent oil leakages in lake Onega in order to ensure the natural water quality in the recreational beach area and to prevent possible oil contamination near drinking water intake area. The surface runoff from the entire city area flows through underground pipelines directly into the lake through 12 outlets along the embankment of Lake Onega. One of the outlets is close to a popular beach and is recognized to be a remarkable carrier for oil and some other contaminants. A remarkable amount of the raw water for city’s drinking water production is taken from a nearby location. The planning and construction of filters solves a remarkable part of the problem and pilot filter gives valuable references for future investments.

In Kajaani, the main interest is to mitigate further eutrophication of a pond Kaupunginlampi, the pond located in a very popular recreational area near the city center. It has been suffering from eutrophication and traces or pollution, mainly due to the ingress of surface rainfall and runoff water outlets into it, washing away pollution from the surface of the city and roads. The number of other types of contamination caused by runoff water is not solely understood at the moment, which underlines the need for actual contaminant level monitoring. The runoff water management pilot will help the aquatic environment in target area to recover, which gives a good reference for future planning in similar targets. City of Kajaani is planning to invest in other pond recovery activities responding to urgent needs and the proposed project supports these activities by providing solutions to cut the further load caused by runoff water. 

The long-term maintenance procedure and responsibilities for both pilot sites are defined as a part of the project, since very often the lack of understanding for maintenance needs decreases the capacity in the long run. Disseminating the experience and results of these pilots supports the initiation of similar development and investments in cities throughout the Karelia CBC area.

In both pilot cases the references from the water quality monitoring solutions give a valuable, practical expertise and experiences on the available monitoring solutions, which could be utilized and adapted in various cases to manage the environmental load in urban and industrial areas.