Almost the entire Košice region, including the city of Košice, depends on the Starina water reservoir (Slovak: vodná nádrž Starina). In engineering terms, this is a classic "single point of failure": a node whose failure stops the entire system. Water engineers and the company VVS (Východoslovenská vodárenská spoločnosť, East Slovak Water Company) warn: without alternative sources, the region will face a shortage of drinking water approximately from 2030. The reason is simple and complex at the same time: climate change plus steady growth in consumption.
What is Starina and why is it so important
Starina is the largest drinking water reservoir not only in Slovakia but in all of Central Europe. Its volume is 59.8 million cubic meters. Water from here goes to about 200 towns and villages in the east of the country.
The history of the facility has a price that is still remembered in Slovakia. The reservoir was built in the 1980s to address a chronic water shortage in the Košice and Prešov regions. For its construction, seven villages were completely evacuated and destroyed: Starina, Dara, Ostrožnica, Zvala, Smolník, Veľká Poľana, and Ruské. People's land is now at the bottom of the reservoir, which remains the largest in Central Europe.
Shortage is already here, just not everywhere
There is no need to wait until 2030 to see the problem: it is already here. Some villages around Košice, including Ruskov, Ďurkov, and Svinica, regularly face critical water shortages, especially during hot months. Local communities are helped by water tankers that deliver water, and these scenarios have been repeating for several years during heatwaves.
The long-term solution for these villages is to connect to the Starina system. But here, logic contradicts itself: if the region already depends on one source, adding new consumers to it only speeds up the onset of the shortage.
How the city can secure itself
In Košice, not everything is as hopeless as the phrase "one source" sounds. The city has several backup options:
- The Starina reservoir covers about 41% of the city's needs – this is the dominant share.
- The Bukovec reservoir provides about 20%.
- The underground source Drienovec and smaller local sources, such as Čermeľské pramene, supplement the rest.
The problem is the scale. The capacity of the backup sources is not enough to fully supply the city in case of a failure of the Starina system. They work as a supplement, not as a replacement.
58 million euros for modernization
In December 2025, an investment of over 58 million euros was announced for the modernization of the water treatment plant in Stakčín – this is where water from Starina is processed. This is the first fundamental reconstruction of the treatment plant in its more than 40 years of operation. The project aims to improve water quality and water supply security for almost 900,000 residents – this is wider than Košice itself, as the system also covers surrounding areas.
However, modernizing the treatment does not create new water. It improves what exists, while experts talk about the need for alternative sources. This is a separate, more expensive, and slower story, which does not exist yet.
What this means for those living in Košice
There is no immediate threat of "the tap drying up tomorrow." The reservoir is functioning, the treatment system is being modernized, and the city has backup sources. The risk is medium-term: if hot summers become longer and consumption continues to grow, the balance between what Starina provides and what the region consumes will shift against the region.
The practical conclusion is simple: if you live in Košice or its
