Historical highlights

Many centuries ago, the area in which the city of Ljubljana lies today provided favourable living conditions with an abundance of water, numerous surface aqueducts and springs in Ljubljansko Polje and Barje. In the time of the Roman Emona, the inhabitants found a water source in the hilly surrounding of their homes and the waste water was drained into the collection canals which led into the Ljubljanica River. The water supply system that ran from Golovec towards Mestni trg has been used for long centuries, according to some sources as long as until the earthquake in 1511. If we have ever asked ourselves why the villages of Dravlje, Koseze and Šiška have been inhabited for so long, the answer is here. The Romans constructed a water supply system to these settlements from the source Zlatek in Podutik, which was still in use in 1737. There was an important collector well under Rožnik, behind the castle Cekinov grad, which later supplied water to the well at Mestni trg. Public water supply then stagnated so that the city got the water from the springs and village fountains in the Middle Ages and before that period.
 
In 1888 they adopted a decision to construct a pumping station Kleče 3 kilometres north of the inhabited areas of the city, in the form of a gallery with four fountains, the primary waterworks in the length of 27,326 m and a reservoir at Rožnik with the capacity of 3030 m3. The dug out fountains were connected to the shaft via an underground siphon which contained a piston pump driven by a steam engine. Two years after the decision, on 17 May 1890, water was supplied to the first 606 houses. In 1910 there were 1368 houses connected to the waterworks.
 
In 1940 the steam boilers were shut down since the pumps were connected to the electricity network. The water supply facility Kleče had six wells in 1950, fifteen in 1970 and seventeen in 1989. As of that time, its capacity has not changed.
 
The water supply facility Hrastje started operating with four wells in 1953 and two years later the water supply facility Šentvid was constructed which is still operating with three wells. In 1975 the capacity of the water supply facility Hrastje was doubled and today there are ten wells at that area.

In 1981 the water supply facility Brest was constructed on the heap of the Iška River, which at first only exploited the aquifer layers in the upper Holocene sediments while today it also draws from the underground water of lower aquifer layers. One year later, the water supply facility Jarški prod was constructed on the left bank of the Sava River.