Commission organises "name and shame" seminar on city sewage

Brussels, 19 March 2001
Today Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström will launch a "name and shame" seminar on the EU's urban wastewater directive. Ten years after the adoption of this directive, the vast majority of Member States show major delays and shortcomings in its implementation. 37 large cities are still discharging untreated waste water into the environment, and many others are discharging large quantities of effluent after inadequate treatment. Almost all Member States are very slow in providing the Commission with information about the treatment of city sewage in their country. Commenting on the importance of the Directive Commissioner Wallström said: "The environment of the EU would look different if legislation was enforced in Member States. Waste water treatment, for example, makes the difference between good and bad bathing water and thereby directly affects people's health." She continued: "Member States are also setting a bad example and sending a deplorable message to the candidate countries, which are being criticised for not transposing EU environmental legislation quickly enough."

Improving implementation of environmental legislation is a priority for the Commission and, as announced in the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, 'name, shame and fame' seminars are one tool to increase awareness about the effects of poor implementation of Community law. Today's seminar will outline the effect of urban waste water treatment on the quality of rivers and lakes and give a full picture of the EU's existing water legislation. Furthermore, it will present EU financing of waste water treatment and point to the future of an enlarged Europe.

The Directive on waste water treatment⁽¹⁾, which was adopted by the Council in 1991, aims to protect the environment from the adverse effects of the discharge of urban wastewater biodegradable waste water from the food-processing industry. The main obligation imposed by the Directive concerns the establishment of waste water collection and treatment systems.

Most Member States fail to implement

There are three major deadlines in the Directive.

• The first was 31 December 1998 by which date all agglomerations with more than 10,000 inhabitants⁽²⁾ discharging their effluent into or upstream of an area regarded as sensitive should have been equipped with a stringent collection and treatment system.

• By the end of 2000 nine years after adoption Member States should have established secondary collection and treatment systems (usually biological treatment) in agglomerations with more than 15,000 inhabitants.

• The final deadline is 31 December 2005 for the establishment of appropriate secondary treatment in small agglomerations.

Most Member States have major shortcomings with regards with all these deadlines and with the identification of sensitive areas.

• Identification of sensitive areas. Member States have proceeded in a restrictive fashion when designating sensitive areas and have not taken into account the fact that discharged wastewater migrates and contributes to an increase in the level of pollution of downstream water. According to the Commission the choice of the treatment level for a town should take into account the degree of sensitivity of the receiving water bodies situated further (and sometimes much further) downstream from the towns concerned. The incomplete designation of sensitive areas results in an under-assessment of the wastewater treatment targets for many agglomerations, which are sometimes very large, e.g. London, Paris, Athens and Dublin.

• Major delays in implementation. For the 3,247 agglomerations with more than 10,000 inhabitants which are in sensitive areas and where Member States should introduce more stringent treatment, only Denmark and Austria are close to compliance with the 1998 deadline. In addition, even if a considerable number of the 542 large European cities of more than 150,000 inhabitants are equipped with adequate treatment, 37 are discharging all their wastewater into the environment without prior treatment, 72 discharge a large proportion of their wastewater without treatment or after inadequate treatment, while for 131 others no complete information has been given to the Commission.

Member States slow in providing information

In the course of the last two years and on the basis of the information transmitted by the Member States, Commission staff has checked the degree of compliance with the first requirements of the Directive. Information from the European Environment Agency confirms that where efforts have been made to implement the Directive the result is a significant improvement in the water quality of many European rivers and lakes. Nevertheless, the situation remains worrying with regard to the eutrophication of the seawater of the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic Sea.

However, the Commission's work has been slowed down, in some case substantially, by the delays with which almost all Member States have provided the information. In addition, France and Germany have not given any information at all about the situation with regard to the treatment of their urban wastewater as at 31 December 1998.

Commissioner Wallström said: "This is an unconstructive attitude which is a barrier to transparency and proper information for the public."

New and traditional tools to improve implementation

To achieve better implementation the Commission will continue to check and help ensure compliance. It will also continue to apply traditional measures such as infringement proceedings for any failure to comply with the requirements of the Directive.

The Commission is also encouraging Member States to implement the Directive by granting financial aid under the Structural and Cohesion Funds. It is also active in the accession candidate countries via the ISPA (Financial Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession). Furthermore, it will grant financial aid conditional on stringent compliance with the requirements in the Directive.

In addition, in the next few years the Commission will step up these activities with regard to local and regional decision makers, authorities and bodies by raising awareness among the general public, activating networks of cities and by means of technical assistance to help small and medium-sized agglomerations comply by 2005.

Commissioner Margot Wallström has also announced that she will launch a transparent and comprehensive discussion on urban water management. This discussion will address in particular preventive action at source by raising the awareness of water consumers, utilisation of the end products of treatment, and rainwater management. All the stakeholders - towns and cities, NGO's, water industries, consumers, and national, regional and local administrations - will be involved in this discussion.

She said: "It is important to change behaviour in order to put an end to the policy of 'putting everything downs the drains' which cannot be justified by the existence of a water-purification station. In addition, domestic, urban and industrial water consumers, who in recent years have learnt to sort their waste, should also learn to treat water as a precious commodity".

Looking ahead at an enlarged Union

For the Candidate Countries implementing the urban wastewater directive will be a major challenge both technically and financially. It has been estimated that all investments needed would amount up to almost € 30 billion. However, the achieved environmental benefits would be undeniable: it has been estimated that implementing the directive could result in 40-50 % reduction in nutrient inputs to Candidate Countries' waters. Also the long-term benefits for the public health will be significant.

Good progress has been made in preparing the financing strategies to implement the directive, and a significant proportion of Community financial assistance has been allocated to wastewater treatment projects.

Maps

Maps identifying sensitive areas, cities in conformity with the Directive and the situation of all large cities in the Member States are available on the Internet at the following address:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/whatsnew.htm

Glossary

Primary treatment: mechanical or chemical treatment eliminating part of the suspended solids in wastewater but not affecting the dissolved pollutants.

Secondary treatment: treatment making it possible to eliminate suspended solids and dissolve pollutants by a process generally involving biological treatment.

Stringent (tertiary) treatment: secondary treatment accompanied by supplementary treatment of nitrogen and/or phosphorus and/or pathogenic microbes.

Sensitive area: water body the state and/or use of which justifies the need for stringent treatment of wastewater from towns and cities situated in that area and towns and cities which contribute, even indirectly, to the pollution of that area.

Eutrophication: when discharged into rivers, urban wastewater, which is rich in nutrient elements, favours the proliferation of plant elements (macroalgae, phytoplanktons). This proliferation causes the disappearance of other existing aquatic species as a result of biological competition. In addition, the decomposition of those plant elements, which consumes a great deal of oxygen, causes an impoverishment of the water and the disappearance of any form of life.

Annex 1

Cities with more than 150.000 inhabitants without waste water treatment

Please note that contrary to other Member States, France and Germany have not informed the Commission on the treatment situation in their large cities. Consequently, the Commission could not undertake an analysis of the situation.

Belgium	Brussels	The City of Brussels did not have any waste water treatment at all on 31 December 1998. The first treatment plant to be constructed has been treating one third of waste water at secondary level since the autumn 2000, i.e. below the level required by the Directive. The second treatment plant in Brussels is at the planning stage and will not be operational before 2004-2005.
Greece	Patra	Projects are in progress in Patra and Elefsina Aspropyrgos. The Patra treatment plant is expected to be operational in 2001.
	Elefsina Aspropyrgos
Spain	La Coruña	The Spanish authorities have indicated that construction work is in progress for Alginet, Donastia-San Sebastian and Logroño and that these cities should be in conformity in two or three years time. In the case of the other cities without treatment, the treatment plants are either planned or contracts for their construction are being awarded.
	Alginet
	Cadiz
	Donostia-San Sebastian
	Gijon
	Logroño
	Tui
Ireland	Dundalk	Dundalk did not have any treatment on 31 December 1998, but a secondary treatment plant was expected to become operational at the end of 2000. Cork also did not have any treatment plant for waste water on 31 December 1998. Secondary treatment is planned for the end of 2003. In view of the eutrophication of the coastal waters and estuaries in this location, the Commission believes that the city of Cork should introduce tertiary treatment of nitrogen and phosphorus.
	Cork
Italy	Foce Sarno	Taranto and Merano introduced full tertiary treatment in 2000 and, according to the information provided, the others should achieve conformity by 2004 at the latest.
	Imperia Foce Impero
	Medio Sarno
	Merano
	Milan
	Misterbianco
	Taranto
Portugal	Barreiro	Projects of work are in progress in certain of those cities. Portugal has announced that the planned treatment plants will be operational in 2005 at the latest.
	Costa do Estoril
	Cova da Beira
	Matosinhos
	Porto
	Setubal
	Vila Nova de Gaia
United Kingdom	Dundee	Projects of work are in progress in certain of those cities.
	Sunderland/Whitburn
	Middlesbrough
	Hull
	Bebington
	Port Talbot
	Torbay
	Portsmouth
	Brighton
	Hastings
	Dover/Folkestone

Annex 2

Cities with more than 150,000 inhabitants with an inadequate level of treatment - Situation at 31 December 1998.

Unlike other Member States, France and Germany have not informed the Commission on the treatment situation in their large cities. Consequently, the Commission could not undertake a complete analysis of the situation. For France the Commission services have therefore used the 1996 data of the Réseau National de Données sur l'Eau (RNDE). In January 2001, Germany merely described the situation for about 10 out of around 150 cities. Among those ten cities, one - Magdeburg - had inadequate treatment.

The Commission services have also assumed that the Belgian, Italian, and British cities for which no information has been given, have an inadequate level of treatment.

The cities listed below therefore carry out either primary treatment, partial secondary treatment, and / or partial primary treatment. Under the Waste water dirctive, all should have established primary and secondary treatment by end 2000.

Belgium	Charleroi		Pau
	Liège		Marseille
	Wavre		Toulon
Greece	Athina		Cannes-mandelieu
	Thessaloniki	Germany	Magdeburg
Spain	Santander	Ireland	Dublin
	Vigo	Italy	Firenze
	Palencia		Trieste
	Pineda de Mar		Reggio Calabria
	Barcelona		Como
	Salamanca		Rosolina-Donada-Contarina
	Castellon		Salerno
	Benidorm	Portugal	Aveiro
	Gandia		Lisboa
	Molina de Segura	United Kingdom	Aberdeen
	Mar Menor Sur		Glasgow
	Murcia		Edinburgh
	Benalmadena		Newcastle upon Tyne
	Fuengirola		Liverpool
	Algeciras		Birmingham
	San Fernando de Henares		Great Yarmouth
	Palma de Majorca		Cardiff
	Alcala de Henares		Bristol
France	Calais		Sandown
	Lille		Worthing
	Boulogne-sur-mer		Gillingham
	Le Havre		Eastbourne
	Cergy		Tyneside
	Paris		Wakefield
	Versailles		Barnsley
	Bonneuil-en-France		Doncaster
	Besançon		Macclesfield
	Lyon		Birkenhead
	Saint-Etienne		Basildon
	Bordeaux		Canvey
	Bayonne		Southampton/Eastleigh

^{(1) Directive 91/271/EC on waste water treatment}

^{(2) Inhabitant = the equivalent to the average daily pollution produced by one person per day.}