With its pristine blue lakes dotted with wooded islands, the Pistohiekka area in Puumala municipality exudes natural peace and quiet.
With its dancing pavilions, the area was once a popular venue for summer festivities. It now has a new lease of life with the opening last summer of a holiday area including a restaurant, two lakeside saunas and ten cottages with bathrooms and mini kitchens. There are also plans for a camping site for around a hundred caravans or mobile homes including shower, toilet and cooking facilities. Where there is life and activity, there is also wastewater.
– The Pistohiekka area is around 16 kilometres from the centre of Puumala, separated by some hilly and rocky areas, and the closest wastewater treatment plant is over ten kilometres away. Connecting this sort of terrain to the municipal wastewater system would have been expensive and difficult, says Puumala municipality’s technical manager Kimmo Hagman.
– We looked into this with our environmental secretary and decided to treat the wastewater locally. Raita Environment has put in wastewater systems for companies nearby and we performed some surface analyses with them. They produced a greywater treatment plan with the option to scale up the system as activities increase and including blackwater treatment.
Raita HS Bio 12 wastewater system can be scaled to requirement
Now the owner or tenant pipes the black wastewater in the area to tanks, from where it is transported 15 kilometres by road. A Raita HS Bio 12 wastewater system was installed for greywater.
– The procurement process and the teamwork with Raita went well. Working with them is straightforward since they have all the necessary technical solutions. The installation was completed on time and there have been no setbacks, Hagman says.
– Water consumption in the area is currently around 500–1000 m³. But further construction of 20,000 square metres of floor area is permitted, so it’s important to have a blackwater treatment capability in the area in future. We plan to get permits for this for 2024.
Easy on the wallet and nature
– The financial savings of the system mostly benefit plot buyers and companies in the area. From an environmental perspective it makes sense to place a technical maintenance area where it is needed. This avoids wastewater transport that burdens the environment, says Hagman.
Tourists and locals can rest assured that they can continue to enjoy the water and pure nature of Saimaa in Puumala’s Pistohiekka area.