Ulaanbaatar’s population has nearly tripled since 1990, and around half of Mongolia’s population now live in and around the capital. Industrial expansion in the same period has been centred on UB as well. More people and more industry both need increasing amounts of water. At the same time, the ground water reserves in the Tuul River basin that provide for UB’s needs have been dwindling, partly as a result of climate change. Visitors landing at Buyant Ukhaa airport in the 90s were often greeted in summer by wonderful views of the braided beds and tributaries of the Tuul meandering across the green valley towards the capital. This vision of plentiful water supplies is seen less often today. Though around half the population of UB live in ger districts and get by on around 10 litres of often contaminated well water a day, the other half, living in flats, consume around 25 times as much purified water. As gers give way to apartment blocks, demand for safe, clean water is bound to rocket.
It is reported that water stress in UB, first flagged as a growing risk around 2015, is due to become acute this year. Industry, in particular the thermal power plants (TPPs) that provide the Capital’s electricity, now uses up a quarter of the available drinking water. Suitably treated wastewater would do just as well. However the existing Central Wastewater Treatment Plant (CWTP), which dates from 1964 and has not been significantly modernised since, has long been unable to produce anything like enough to cut back industrial reliance on groundwater resources increasingly needed for domestic use.
Back in 2001, the Mongolian Government began focusing on ways to end this needless competition for precious supplies of clean groundwater. In 2016, it initiated a four-year action plan to renovate the wastewater treatment plants in UB and other cities. After inconclusive discussions with the European Bank of Regional Development (EBRD), the Mongolian government negotiated its second major compact with the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). In this agreement, the MCC undertook to provide Mongolia with a grant of US$350 million, to be spent over five years on a range of water projects including work on renovating the CWTP. However it soon emerged that simply renovating the small-scale CWTP would not meet rapidly increasing demands for fresh water, and a proposal to build a new WTP was agreed with the MCC.
As part of the final compact signed in July 2018, the Mongolian government agreed to match the MCC grant with a significant local contribution, of around US$112 million.
Having made such encouraging headway with the major ‘Third Neighbour’, Mongolia now engaged one of its traditional ‘First Neighbours’. Following high-level exchanges, China has provided a soft loan worth some UD$917 million via EXIM Bank for use on a range of water projects.
It is considered possible that synergy may be created between US and Chinese funding by drawing on Chinese funds to cover the local contribution required under the MCC compact.
The two separate Chinese and MCC projects contain many distinct activities without any overlap. But though detail remains somewhat obscure, possible interconnectivity may also be observed between the practical aims of the US and Chinese-backed projects in regard to fresh water supply and wastewater treatment in UB. Media coverage tends to deal with the projects separately, but a closer look suggests that there is some interconnection and overlap. While such scenarios may flex over time, the following is how such connectivity seems to be envisaged.
The MCC is funding the construction of around 50 new wells and a reservoir in the Tuul basin west of UB for extraction and storage of natural fresh water. This will be processed in an advanced fresh water purification plant from which it will be piped to UB for domestic use. This new supply in itself will significantly increase the amount of drinkable water available in the capital.
Separately, China is financing the construction of a new CWTP next to the original plant, to process heavily-polluted industrial wastewater. A ground-breaking ceremony for this facility took place in February 2019.
Some of this new CWTP’s treated output will be transferred to another, more advanced new WTP, which is to be funded by MCC. This twice-treated wastewater will then be made available to Ulaanbaatar’s TTPs, specifically to Thermal Plants nos. 3 and 4, ending their current reliance on fresh groundwater.
When this constructive interplay between the US and Chinese projects is fully realised, it is reported that the amount of fresh water available for domestic use in UB will increase from the current annual volume of 2.2 million cubic metres to around 4 million cubic metres. Water purification processes will enable the recycling of around 400,000 cubic metres of wastewater. These figures are taken from MCC sources which do not explicitly take account of Chinese -funded outcomes.
There are indications that for this interconnectivity between the two great neighbours’ projects to function properly, it will be necessary for the new CWTP to start running first, to ensure that its outputs meet various requirements including compatibility with re-processing technology to be used at the MMC-funded WTP.
It is to be hoped that despite current constraints on international co-operation on so many fronts, Mongolia will still be able to benefit from combined and co-ordinated support from great neighbours near and far, in tackling the crucial issue of water security for the nation’s capital.
(Image: Namsrai Henderson)