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Danish support to improved water quality in Central and Eastern Europe 1991-2001

Chapter 4
Description of the Danish assistance

Within the water environment sector more than 400 projects have been executed in the CEEC at a total Danish support of DKK 1.4 billion. About DKK 0.9 billion was allocated for investment projects which directly attracted DKK 4.5 billion of local investments. The about DKK 0.5 billion for technical assistance were targeting project preparations, which is now leading to an overall investment of the size DKK 20 billion. This investment is a combination of local financing, export credits, loans and grants.

The high degree of co-financing from recipient countries indicates that the supported projects have been clearly in demand in the CEE.

4.1 Basis for Prioritising the Assistance

The Danish support to the water environment in the CEEC has grown from approximately DKK 40 million/ year to over DKK 200 million/year in 1999. Projects have been selected based on a set of priority factors and in co-ordination with donorcountries and international financing institutions. The DANCEE prioritisation includes:

	Priority in the recipient country
	The efficiency of the intervention
	The location of the project
	Possibility for co-financing

The Ministry of Environment in the individual recipient countries co-ordinates and prioritises projects, which are presented by municipalities or other national or local authorities for external financing. Included in the national prioritisation is the contribution from the project to comply with international environment and nature conventions signed by the country. To reduce potential conflicts between countries, Denmark also emphasises cross-border projects where e.g. discharges from one country pollute the water resource of a downstream country.

The supported intervention projects should have their environmental effect clearly expressed to evaluate the investment efficiency in terms of environmental improvement.

Distribution of water quality projects based on costs

Distribution of 10 years support f

The overall geographical prioritisation for Denmark was in the beginning of the period primarily targeting the improvement of the Baltic Sea. This included countries like Poland, The Baltic States, Belarus, The Baltic catchment area of Russia and Ukraine. Through the 1990s the projects have also targeted countries in Central Europe and countries discharging to the Black Sea (Romania and Bulgaria).

Until 1998, projects that showed visible results were prioritised over studies and project preparation. Towards the end of the 1990s, project preparation increased because of the need to support countries of the CEE first in line in preparing for EU supported projects (LSIF, ISPA). At the same time increasing ocus have been on the remaining CEEC where the Danish support also is paving the way for EU grant financing. The development is seen on the following graph, which shows the development of the Danish annual commitment to countries of the CEE within water environment.

Since 1999 the assistance to the preparation for the large EU grants (institutional projects) has played an important part of the total Danish support. This includes support to identifying the needs for adapting local regulation to EU directives and to identify the required investments. The strong participation of Denmark in this preparation phase is ensuring that Danish know-how and technology is continuously being presented to all countries of the CEE.

Following the formation of the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) Denmark contributed to identifying "hotspots" in the catchment areas around the Baltic Sea. The identification of "hotspots" assisted in targeting interventions supported by the donor countries. DANCEE projects have contributed to the deletion of 20 "hotspots" (out of 132) in the CEEC discharging to the Baltic Sea.

Source: HELCOM

According to HELCOM, municipal and industrial "hotspots" include those emitting high and/or significant amounts of polluting substances, such as hazardous substances, phosphorus, nitrogen and organic matter released via rivers or directly into the Baltic Sea. Examples include wastewater collection and treatment systems that fail to efficiently treat hazardous substances, leaking sewer networks, and industrial facilities leaking high, and/or significant amounts of substances such as salts and oil, contributing to effects such as turbidity, siltation, and thermal effects significantly effecting marine and coastal species.

DANCEE concentrates the support to the water environment on five intervention areas:

	Drinking water and ground water
	Domestic wastewater
	Industrial water pollution
	Receiving waters
	Oil spill

For each of the prioritised intervention areas a set of indicators have been applied to express the environmental effect of the intervention.

4.2 Integrated water and wastewater development

DANCEE has from the early start of its assistance focused on development of water and wastewater according to a holistic and integrated approach in order to obtain a maximum environment and health impact from investments in the sector.

Therefore, a part of the DANCEE support to the sector has been allocated the preparation of feasibility studies and other project preparatory work for water and wastewater development. DANCEE has up to now focused mainly on large and medium sized cities and the assistance has covered several countries of the CEE.

Focus has been given to the identification of affordable service levels, tariff scenarios, and development of prioritised investment plans. The project preparatory work has been carried out in advance of further DANCEE investments in a particular city or has been project preparatory work for envisaged loans by one of the large international financing institutions (eg. WB and EBRD).

Increasingly over the years, the link and interaction between technical, institutional, and financial aspects of sector development have been incorporated in the project portfolio. Therefore, DANCEE has supported preparation of country and regional financing strategies as well as a tool for addressing the affordability question. The legal framework, hereunder approximation towards EU, has also been part of the project portfolio.

4.3 Drinking Water and Groundwater

Under the drinking water and groundwater heading DANCEE has carried out some 100 projects within water resources management and water supply operations at a total amount of EUR 36.6 million. The total cost of projects supported by DANCEE has been EUR 155 million.

Water resources management projects have been implemented within the whole spectre from overall groundwater resources management and monitoring at country level to groundwater and surface water investigations at city level, hereunder modelling of the groundwater resources.

A large part of the DANCEE financial support has been allocated to physical improvement of water supply systems in both large and smaller cities spread over the entire CEEC. Investments have been within water intakes, water treatment plants and distribution systems. Often the investments have been identified in a project preparation/feasibility study carried out previously or simultaneously with the investments. The projects have mainly two objectives either a health objective by ensuring an acceptable water quality or a cost reduction objective. Cost reduction is achieved either through a reduction of the Unaccounted-for-Water in the distribution or through rehabilitation of energy consuming parts of the existing system.

A few projects have focused on establishment of hydraulic network models for the distribution network a necessity for efficient management of the water system and a tool in water demand control.

Increasingly projects dealing entirely or partly with water conservation are being implemented. The reason for this is an acknowledged need for demand management to control the currently high unit water demands (in particular in CIS). Control of the water demand might reduce the investment needs in water supply and wastewater treatment. Projects have dealt with water conservation on many levels. A national strategy has been prepared for a whole country, metering programmes have been designed and implemented in several cities, leakage detection equipment and training has been provided to several water utilities, and several projects have included development and implementation of water conservation campaigns.

Training has been an important part of most projects but some projects could however be categorised as training or capacity building projects in themselves. A couple of twinning type arrangements have been made between Danish municipalities and municipalities in the CEEC. Chapter 5 describes the cooperation with stakeholders in more detail.

Finally, DANCEE has over the years provided technical assistance to local water and wastewater utilities in the implementation of large scale internationally financed projects. This assistance has been in the form of provision of staff to PIU (Project Implementation Units). The demand for this type of assistance is increasing with the implementation of the ISPAprogramme.

4.4 Wastewater

DANCEE has supported over 200 projects within municipal wastewater management. The total support has amounted to EUR 102.5 million. The total cost of projects supported by DANCEE has been EUR 497 million

The recipient countries have prepared many of the wastewater projects themselves. Still there has been a need to update projects and to adapt them to more advanced technology. Projects that could be directly continued in an intervention were prioritised. The project preparation included the dimensioning of wastewater treatment plants, of sludge handling facilities, and hydraulic modelling of wastewater systems.

The interventions in wastewater treatment plants have included Danish technical assistance in dimensioning, specifying, and supervising installations and supply of mechanical and electrical equipment. The recipient countries typically financed civil and structural works. Many treatment plants have been upgraded to reduce the discharge of nitrogen and phosphorous. This includes provision of Danish equipment like blowers, mixers and instrumentation. Another common intervention has been the installation of automatic control and computerised monitoring, which greatly improves control and supervision of plant operation.

A number of projects have developed lowtechnology solutions for small communities (where the water environment was sensitive to pollution). This includes sandfilter, reed beds or lagoon systems.

Other interventions concentrated on the sludge handling to reduce the water pollution from sludge lagoons, which has been a typical way of disposing surplus sludge. By providing sludge dewatering equipment and improvements to digester performance, the amount of sludge to be disposed of is reduced by more than a factor 10.

Within sewer systems there has been a great need to reduce infiltration and exfiltration from corroded or broken pipes. Wastewater is leaking out above the groundwater, and water is seeping into untight sewer pipes where they are located below groundwater levels. This has led to groundwater pollution and hydraulic overload of wastewater treatment plants. Denmark has a particularly high level of expertise within pipeline renovation of the Nodig method. This has been demonstrated through a number of projects in the CEEC where both the construction time and the disturbance to urban traffic were dramatically reduced.

Energy saving in wastewater treatment plants and pumping stations targeted to reduce operating cost and CO₂-emissions from coal-based energy production. The payback period for new pump installations has in cases been less than two years where energy consumption has been more than halved.

During the implementation of the projects, expertise has been provided for construction management to apply modern Danish methods within quality assurance, financial management and construction planning. Assistance has been provided both on partly Danish financed projects, but also on projects financed through the EU and other international financing institutions.

Training has been an important part of many projects. Some projects are capacity building as its main focus to ensure the future handling of the investments. The training both included technical and administrative matters. The technical aspects include everything from planning, project preparation and project implementation including computer modelling. On the administrative side the focus has been on future organisation of institutions and development of water companies into autonomous and efficient operators.

The Vilnius wastewater treatment plant have greatly impoved water quality of the Neris River

4.5 Industrial Wastewater

The focus on industrial water pollution control is similar to the focus on municipal wastewater treatment. DANCEE has supported 50 projects at an amount of EUR 15.7 million. The total cost of projects supported by DANCEE has been EUR 45 million

The goal is to protect surface water resources, major rivers, the Baltic and the Black Sea. HELCOM identified a long range of industrial "hotspots" located either on the cost or along the major rivers leading to the Baltic Sea. Many types of industries are represented like metal, pulp and paper, chemical, food, textile etc. Also included are the large livestock farms particularly present in Russia. "Hotspots" has similarly been defined for the Black Sea particularly in the Donau river basin.

Compliance with EU's IPPC-directives has been another goal of the industrial projects. This implies that Best Available Technology (BAT) is applied, a technology that in general is available in Denmark.

The DANCEE supported projects within industrial water pollution has concentrated on applying cleaner technology.

Formerly it was an acknowledged procedure to get rid of industrial waste products by discharging into rivers and lakes. Alternatively to treating the discharge, which require energy, leading to increased discharge of SO₂, NO_x and CO₂, the concept of cleaner technology were introduced.

DANCEE projects within industrial pollution have concentrated on a broad range of industries, where Denmark today have a highly modernised (also in environmental terms) production facilities. The support from Denmark was typically provided through a combination of consultants, institutes, and representatives from industries. Food industries (like slaughterhouses), metal industries (like galvano) and chemical industries (like pulp, paper and tanneries) were targeted to reduce water consumption, reduce wasting of organic matter, heavy metals and chemical components and to reduce energy consumption. In many places a typical win-win situation was the result when production cost was dramatically reduced and at the same time pollution was minimised. A substantial part of the potential for this was realised through a change in operation, better maintenance, and minor improvements of existing equipment.

Some of the industries targeted in the DANCEE industrial projects could not discharge their wastewater to their municipal wastewater treatment plant. The reason was that their wastewater was either toxic to the biological processes or it would contaminate the sludge and thereby prevent it to be applied on agricultural land. Through a combination of cleaner technology and pretreatment these discharges can now be directed to the municipal wastewater treatment plant and the direct discharge to a recipient from the industry can be closed.

Through all the projects, training has been a key component both for local consultants and industrial engineers and technical personnel at the enterprises. Projects also served as demonstration projects stimulating local investments in further introduction of cleaner technology.

A special type of industrial water pollution control projects has been the support to large scale livestock farms. The pollution problems from storing of slurry were substantial and Danish technology from industrial farming i.e. water conservation and slurry handling have been introduced. Also in this case it was demonstrated that waste is a resource as slurry has been applied as fertiliser (frequently unaffordable to farmers) leading to a substantial increase in crop production.

The containment of industrial sludge in earth dams has created situations where potential pollution disaster is eminent. DANCEE supported projects have as an immediate intervention supported the securement of earth dams and provided a shortterm plan for treatment of the highly toxicious sludge and thereby the future closure of these dams.

4.6 Receiving Waters

DANCEE has funded 28 receiving water projects primarily in Poland and the three Baltic States. The support amounted to EUR 8 million. The total cost of projects supported by DANCEE has been EUR 13 million.

Generally speaking, the projects fall into two main categories: environmental monitoring and environmental/nature management. Within each category, both projects at the national level and at a local level have received funding.

Environmental monitoring is carried out with different purposes. It is a prerequisite for evaluation of status and trends in environmental quality, in this case of the aquatic environment, and the recipients of information from monitoring exercises can be both local, regional and national authorities, and international bodies e.g. the HELCOM. Based on such monitoring, policies aimed to control and manage the water environment are developed and specific action initiated as necessary. Moreover, monitoring programmes are often set up to study the effect of actions implemented to improve water quality or of projects that are known or anticipated to have a qualitative or quantitative impact on the water environment. In some cases the monitoring results are used to adjust projects or regulatory actions to ensure compliance with water quality objectives.

The political and administrative structures and processes in the region have undergone major changes following the collapse of the old regimes in 1989/1990. This has resulted in a significant need also among the authorities and institutions involved in environmental monitoring to adapt to the new situation and requirements, both nationally and internally and in particular in the light of the efforts of most of the CEEC to access the EU as soonest as possible. Institutional capacity strengthening and revision of monitoring strategies and programmes have therefore become key elements of many of the projects within this field.

Also the scientific and technical aspects of monitoring in the aquatic environment have been addressed in the projects. Some projects have directly aimed to establish the technical basis and knowhow to monitor water quality and identify pollution sources in a local context, e.g. in relation to port activities or the creation of reservoirs for water supply. Others have comprised monitoring activities in a pilot area with the aim to illustrate how general strategies for national monitoring programmes can be implemented in practice. Both types of projects have typically involved the whole sequence of activities related to monitoring: setting up the monitoring stations in the field, undertaking analyses in the lab, analysing, storing and presenting data using modern ITtechnology.

Often the monitoring projects have contained some elements of environmental management and vice versa. However, the environmental management projects differ from the monitoring projects by focusing on analysis of the obtainable information, e.g. from monitoring activities, to identify possible needs for measures to improve the situation and to develop specific proposals for policies and actions to reach the goal.

Mathematical models are often used as decision support tools for such purposes and in several cases both hardware and software has been delivered, and training in the understanding and use of the models has constituted an integrated part of the projects. E.g. in relation to a planned water supply reservoir in Poland, it could be demonstrated by use of mathematical computer models that the design of the reservoir would not lead to significant negative effects downstream. On the other hand it was shown that with the existing pollution level in the major river supplying the reservoir, eutrophication resulting in inadequate drinking water quality would probably occur.

Over time Poland has been hit by serious flooding along the Oder and the Vistula Rivers. The flooding along the Oder River in the summer of 1997 was disastrous as water rose to 4 m high in the streets. More than 140,000 people were evacuated as 86 towns and 845 villages were flooded. Flooding also hit the Czech Republic and in both cases the damages to infrastructure and properties were several billions DKK.

DANCEE reacted immediately by providing equipment for emergency water supply and drain pumps, and by identifying infrastructure components that needed immediate rehabilitation. The projects included rehabilitation of water works, boreholes, supply systems, and wastewater treatment plants.

The MARPOL 73/78 Convention, "The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships", contains detailed regulations covering the various sources of ship-generated pollution World-wide and is also binding for countries bordering the Baltic Sea region. The Helsinki Convention of 1992 also aims to prevent the Baltic Sea from pollution of crude oil and oil products.

The flooding assistance also provided a flooding monitoring and alert system for both Poland and the Czech Republic. Included was a computer model which can simulate flow and water level in the river systems and forecasting of flooding based on weather forecasts on precipitation. The model also provided the possibility of developing a long term strategy for controlling flood.

4.7 Oil Spill

DANCEE has supported 20 projects within oil spill at a total amount of EUR 8 million. The total cost of projects supported by DANCEE has been EUR 18 million.

DANCEE is the largest financial contributor supporting oil contingency plan preparation and reception facilities for shipgenerated waste in the Baltic Sea region. The assistance within preparation of oil contingency plans (institutional investment plans and cofinanced hardware deliveries) and reception harbour facilities (organisational, institutional and investment plans) allows the cooperative countries to comply with the MARPOL Convention and HELCOM requirements.

DANCEE has in close cooperation with e.g. Finland and HELCOM launched a number of activities assisting the environmental and harbour authorities along the Baltic Sea preparing for and beginning to implement oil contingency plans and upgrading of reception facilities in main harbours. Furthermore, purchasing of international compliant response equipment enables the countries to take targeted actions in case of marine oil spill.

References

DANCEE: Danish-Polish Environmental Co-operation 1991-2000, 2001.

DANCEE: Cleaner Technology Transfer to the Polish Textile Industry

EU, DG Regio: ISPA, mandate, programming and implementation, 2000.

Helsinki Commission: Home page www.helcom.fi, 2001.

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