Kraków Airport Signs 104.5 Million PLN Deal for Olszanicki Stream Realignment and Retention Basins

Kraków Airport signed a 104.5 million PLN net contract on August 20 with INSTBUD for the Olszanicki stream realignment and retention basins to protect the Olszanica housing estate from deicing pollutants.

Contract Signed for Stream Realignment

54 days from the contract signing date, work on regulating the course of the Olszanicki stream at Kraków Airport will last, and the entire investment will be completed in 22 months according to schedule. Today, on August 20, the contract was signed for the realignment of the Olszanicki stream and the construction of retention basins that will protect the Olszanica housing estate from pollutants originating from the aircraft deicing process and the airport area. The contractor is INSTBUD sp. z o.o., with a net contract amount of 104.5 million PLN.

Pro-environmental activities and the development of strategic airport infrastructure must go hand in hand, emphasizes Łukasz Strutyński, President of the Management Board of Kraków Airport. Everyone is fully aware of how burdensome the winter seasons are for the nearest neighbors when, for flight safety reasons, using deicing agents is necessary. Therefore, the airport eagerly awaited signing the contract with the investment contractor, which was delayed due to procedural reasons including proceedings in the National Appeals Chamber and before the Regional Court in Warsaw, 23rd Commercial and Public Procurement Division. The starting works should bring the expected effect for the airport and its surroundings in the 2027/28 winter season, while close cooperation with Wody Polskie, the scientific community, and other institutions continues to minimize winter operational burdens.

New Stream Route Implementation

The first stage of work will route the Olszanicki stream along a new path so that its waters do not mix with rainwater coming from the airport area. This solution will make the current section of the stream running through the airport area an internal airport rainwater network along with tributaries from existing impermeable surfaces such as the runway, taxiways, and aircraft parking aprons.

After completing this investment, the Olszanicki stream within the airport boundaries over a length of 2.6 km will be routed through two pipe collectors with a diameter of 1.4 m each, completely separating the stream waters from rainwater inflow from the airport storm drainage system.

Retention and Fuel Basins Construction

The second stage of work involves the construction of underground retention basins for rainwater and meltwater from airport surface and aircraft deicing processes, along with a pipeline system and metered wells allowing for automatic redirection of contaminated water to the designed basins, from where it will be directed to the municipal sanitary sewage network and then to a sewage treatment plant.

The investment also provides for a discharge point for sanitary sewage from aircraft and a disposal point for pollutants from airport sweepers.

The final element of the task execution will be the construction of four aviation fuel tanks with the necessary infrastructure and road system. The designed infrastructure is intended to provide independent airport handling for fuel operators.

The designer of the project documentation is WLC Inżynierowie sp. z o.o., sp.k. based in Kraków.

Wastewater Treatment Plant Feasibility Study

The currently adopted solution assumes that contaminated water will be directed to the sewage treatment plant in Płaszów. However, as repeatedly emphasized, the construction of an own industrial wastewater treatment plant in the future is not excluded, and the airport is ready to implement such an investment if environmental or economic reasons dictate it, reminds Janusz Kardasiński, member of the management board of Kraków Airport. To verify this, a tender was announced for a multi-variant feasibility study for the construction of a wastewater treatment plant.

The deadline for submitting bids for the preparation of a multi-variant feasibility study for the construction of a sustainable industrial wastewater treatment plant for the Kraków-Balice airport expired on August 17. Four bids were submitted in the tender procedure and are currently being verified by the tender committee, with the study contractor to be announced in the coming weeks.