Skillnader i vatten- och avloppshantering inom EU

The management of water resources and waste water varies between the countries of the EU. For many years, a large part of the water in Europe has been contaminated by, among other things, insufficiently treated waste water and emissions from agriculture. The EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC and the Urban Waste Water Directive 91/271/EEC are intended to harmonize fresh-water management and waste water management within the whole EU, aiming at safeguarding drinking water of good quality and a high quality of all water within the EU today and in the future. There are however some problems concerning the waste-water directive. One problem is the huge investment needed in Slovakia to fulfil the demands of the waste-water directive for waste-water management in larger communities (with more than 2000 inhabitants). Many waste-water treatment plants need to be upgraded or built, and in addition a large part of the households in eastern Slovakia are not yet connected to a municipal water-supply and waste-water collecting system (including waste-water treatment). Subsidies from the EU?s structural funds are needed for Slovakia to fulfil the requirements of the waste-water directive. Because this directive only applies to larger communities, smaller communities and private sewage are not affected by the directive and therefore, in general, not eligible for financial funding from EU. Financial funding, however, is needed for addressing inadequate sewage in small communities with poor socioeconomic and municipal financial resources. For water protection to be effective, it is important to take also private sewage emissions into consideration, even though they might appear insignificant. Point emissions from insufficient private sewage (private sewage systems with insufficient waste-water treatment or emission of untreated waste water), primarily in small, tightly clustered communities in Slovakia or for example in Sweden in areas where weekend houses are being converted into permanent dwellings, are potential sources of pollution that can cause health or/and environmental problems. Inadequate private sewage can thus reduce the quality of both surface and ground water and have a negative impact on aquatic ecosystems, which in turn makes it more difficult to reach the quality standards of the Water Framework Directive and its daughter directives. This applies to both Slovakia and Sweden. The private sewage solutions that are recommended today are often satisfactory but not without problems. To give an example, miniature waste water treatment plants are expensive to put in place, require technological knowledge on the part of the property owner and they also require a daily flow of waste water to function properly. Improper handling of the miniature water treatment plant may cause inefficient or no water treatment at all, in some cases the bacterial content of the waste water may increase instead of being reduced. To address the problem concerning private sewage it is important that (1) waste-water solutions are adapted to local circumstances and financial funding are given to economically week municipalities (2) the property owner (owner of the private sewage) regularly controls the quality of the out-going treated wastewater (if it is possible) and (3) that efficient inspections with injunctions (from authorities) are carried out to discover faulty private sewage. Unfortunately financial funding, in general, is not given to small municipalities and/or inappropriate private sewage and inspections, both in Slovakia and Sweden, are generally slow.

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