The Crown of Polish Holes: ECP, or Pruszków Combined Heat and Power Plant

Until recently Warsaw divers could enjoy their own diving spot located under the ceiling. It was enough to leave the city, walk for a dozen or so minutes through the villages near Warsaw, find a side, dirt road, park on a microscopic glade and… just a minute or two walk separated us from a small, cave heaven.

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Unfortunately, a few months ago our beloved underground was buried. Where is the cross, where is the TNT and where is our ECP! Madam Prime Minister, how to live?

Under the code name ECP stood Elektrociepłownia Pruszków II – an impressive, but completely pointless investment in the late period of real socialism. Suffice it to say that the plant, located in the south of Warsaw, was to supply heat to the northern part of the city. Not surprisingly, the plant was never commissioned and in the first decade of the 21st century the complex, which was 90% complete, was demolished.

The investment left behind a 200-metre chimney – today used as a mast for dozens of antennas – and underground concrete tunnels that naturally filled with water over time. This was our little Mecca overhead.

During the summer, diving in ECP required considerable heroism – due to local mosquitoes, assuming alarming sizes and endowed with a viciousness worthy of starving piranhas from the distant Amazon. The faster we dressed in our gear, fighting the flying beasts for literally every drop of blood.

Then, all that was left to do was to wade through bushes, tall grass and scrub, where a whole family of Mexican chubacabras could easily live. Finally, we reached a staircase rising out of the meadow, where all we had to do was put on our fins and plunge into the greenish, clear water. There were several opportunities to enter the water at ECP, allowing you to visit the underwater passages from more than one side.

In the first years after flooding, the CHP plant was famous among divers for the excellent clarity of the water – due to its alkalinity, which did not allow underwater vegetation to develop. The periodic rumours of suit burning, hair dyeing and eye burning were fortunately greatly exaggerated.

Later, the water softened somewhat its hostile character and created quite a friendly environment where even fish lived. The reservoir became more and more popular among divers living in Mazovia, who were attracted by cave diving.

Those entering the water by the most comfortable descent started their tour from a corridor located at level -1. A several dozen metres long, completely flooded passage led to a large hall with open access to the surface, filled with rubble from the building that once stood above it.

In addition to the tangle of rebar, a picturesque steel staircase, a separate stairwell with a partially buried entrance, and numerous nooks and crannies and side rooms awaited the divers, located on a total of three flooded levels.

The clarity of the water here was usually sensational. The walls were varied by hanging lanterns, and over time the corridors started to be filled with valuables brought by visitors – from the typical equipment of the computer corner, to an adorable plush tiger and a remarkably beautiful oil painting depicting – what else? – a seductively draped naked woman.

Returning to the entrance to the water allowed us to visit the corridor below, where for a change the visibility was terrible. After passing through it, it was possible to come to the surface, walk a few dozen metres and enter the “northern” corridor – the longest one, also completely flooded, again with very good water transparency.

There rested one of the many hidden attractions underwater: the famous roe deer. The unfortunate animal wandered too far in its pursuit of grass and died in one of the corridors. Since then, the carcass has been lying under water, allowing inquisitive divers to study the various phases of disposal by aquatic microorganisms.

I caught a glimpse of the bare, whitish ribs sticking up towards the ceiling from the remnants that the hair had turned into. Other attractions of the ECP included construction equipment from the time when the complex was built, or artefacts left behind by scrap metal workers trying to get their hands on steel when the corridors were filled with water.

Unfortunately, the ECP is history. Warehouse and logistics centres had been built on the site of the would-be ECP for years, and it was only a matter of time before their expansion reached the flooded corridors. In connection with the construction of the next hall, the demolition of the entrances and backfilling of those parts of the flooded complex that were accessible from outside began.

The first to “fall” was the northern corridor, which was reached by construction works in the winter of 2013/2014. After the demolition and backfilling of one of the entrances, visibility throughout the corridor dropped to zero, making diving pointless, and this condition persists to this day.

In the summer of 2014, the most picturesque part of the basin, the large pool at the end of corridor -1, was filled in. The effect is easily visible in the stairwell that was usually used to enter the water: the water is black, smells of chemicals, and its transparency is practically zero. The pollutants from corridor -1 flowed down to level -2, where visibility was usually awful anyway – and what the combination of the old and the new “gully” led to is probably easy to imagine.

Well, it is the owner’s sacred right to invest in his area, and the divers’ sacred right to regret a nice, but now defunct site. After the ECP there will remain unforgettable memories, many photos and numerous acquaintances made during common dives. Farewell, ECP!

Authors: Michał Gorzelak, Daria Boruta
Photos: Michał Gorzelak