Warsaw. 60th birthday of Gruba Kaśka. The construction provides water for the capital

Fat Kaska is almost 50 meters tall and has a 44-meter waist, and she was placed on a caisson sunk 31 meters below the riverbed. – And although these dimensions disqualify her from beauty contests, for the people of Warsaw the Vistula panorama would certainly not be as beautiful without this old, plump lady. It is also hard to imagine how the Warsaw Waterworks would cope without the titanic work of the largest infiltration well in Europe. One thing is certain: Fat Kaska is irreplaceable – wrote the waterworks workers.

On the occasion of the 60th birthday of this extraordinary citizen of the city, Warsaw Waterworks has a sweet surprise for the residents. On Monday, September 23, they will be waiting with her from the morning at the Warsaw “Patelnia”.

The idea of ​​building an unusual water intake was born in the minds of engineers: Włodzimierz Skoraczewski and Stanisław Wojnarowicz. However, before Gruba Kaśka began to draw water, the construction of the facility lasted for 12 years. Finally, on September 22, 1964, Kaśka was launched.

– The essence of the unconventional construction was to place the well in the Vistula River, which was unusual, because until now such wells had been located on land. The system implemented in the case of Gruba Kaśka uses the fact that on an unregulated river there is a phenomenon of constant shifting of the bottom sediment, which provides the intake with a constant, natural exchange of the deposit through which the Vistula water penetrates. This in turn translates into the quality of water collected in the infiltration process using drains placed under the Vistula River bottom – perforated steel pipes radiating from the well – explained the waterworks workers.

However, for Gruba Kaśka to operate without disruptions, the work of hydraulic looseners, i.e. ships – Chudy Wojtków, is necessary. The fleet of Warsaw Waterworks includes two such units. They are crucial in the work of the capital's sailors, who, especially during droughts, work almost 24 hours a day to clean the Vistula bottom and maintain its proper level to ensure the efficiency of the main intake and six auxiliary intakes. This allows for drawing about 60 thousand cubic meters of water per day for Warsaw.

Gruba Kaśka is an automated facility. People do not work there on a daily basis. Instead, inside Gruba Kaśka, in a special aquarium, eight mussels – sharp-toothed river mussels – tirelessly perform their service. “Their “job” lasts three months, after which they return to their natural habitat, which is the lake. They are replaced by another eight mussels ready to work – and so on and so forth,” wrote the waterworks workers.

The system is simple – when a threat appears, the mussels close their shells. At the same time, a signal is sent from sensors placed on their bodies, alerting them to the danger. It is precisely because of their sensitivity to all kinds of pollution that they are a perfect complement to human work.