Euro Court of Auditors Reports on Wastewater Treatment Programs
May 28, 2009 // Published as a news service by IHS
On May 28, the European Commission (EC) released a summary of a report by the European Court of Auditors concerning the effectiveness of structural measures spending on wastewater treatment for the 1994-1999 and 2000-2006 program periods.
The court's audit focused on plants funded by the Cohesion Fund and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland. These plants represented the majority of such spending for the covered time periods.
The conclusions presented in the court's report are based on an examination of management and control systems at the EC, plus on an assessment of the performance of 73 treatment plants.
In addition, the report also looked at the disposal of sewage sludge produced as a by-product of wastewater treatment and the role of the EC in the area of wastewater.
Wastewater and sewage sludge from urban agglomerations can affect the quality of Europe's lakes, rivers, coastal waters, soils and groundwaters. As a result, the European Union (EU) has adopted a series of directives and has also co-financed the building of urban wastewater treatment plants through the Cohesion Fund and the ERDF. This has improved significantly the coverage rate of the urban population served by wastewater treatment.
In its report, the court concluded that structural measures have contributed to an improvement in wastewater treatment in the four EU member states audited.
Overall, treatment plants co-financed by structural measures were performing adequately. However some were found to be operating below capacity and, in a minority of cases, EU requirements were not met with regard to effluent quality.
The court found that more attention needed to be paid to ensuring that treatment plants are adequately connected to the sewage network and that the industrial wastewater received by plants has been pretreated as required.
Concerning sewage sludge, the court concluded that the majority of co-financed treatment plants in the four member states audited disposed of sludge according to EU-encouraged methods of reuse, although a minority had chosen less sustainable non-reuse methods. In addition, the court identified some issues with regard to monitoring sludge disposal that could be improved.
The EU's current sewage sludge directive dates from 1986 and therefore does not contain advances in the field made since then. The court maintained that any revision of the directive should take into account all costs and all benefits of the proposed new measures, as well as the potential impact on other EU policies.
As regards the role of the EC, the court stated it believed there could be more consistency in the EC's review of grant applications, which would be facilitated through the development of internal guidelines and checklists for use in the appraisal process.
Furthermore, the court noted that there is a need for a better monitoring of outcomes by the EC when examining final reports before any payment of the funding balance. Appropriate follow-up action should be taken with regard to the non-provision of required information or non-achievement of anticipated results.
Finally, the court considered that maintaining the good ecological status of water bodies requires a stronger emphasis on the EU environmental principles of "the polluter pays" and pollution reduction at the source.
The full report, "The Effectiveness of Structural Measures Spending on Wastewater Treatment for the 1994-1999 and 2000-2006 Programme Periods," is available online.
Source: European Commission (EC).