Presentation - OECD workshop on the performance of utilities for wastewater - DG ENV, Nele Rosenstock and Trudy Higgins

1. Revision of the
Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive
DG ENV European Commission

2. 81% of the pollution treated in plants above
10.000 p.e.
46% above 100.000 p.e.
Source: European Commission, 2022, UWWTD IA Source: OECD, 2020, Financing Water Supply, Sanitation and Flood Protection
Wastewater = public competence + “captive market”
Mainly reactive to legal requirements
Costs covered by mix of water tariffs (70%) and
public budgets (30%)
EU wastewater sector

3. The Directive
Collection
Treatment
Monitoring &
Reporting
Lessons
learnt
Effective tool –
Tangible impacts
Simple and
targeted instrument
Carrot and stick
Benefits >>> costs
Room for
improvement
Remaining pollution
Eutrophication
Energy use, sludge
management
Governance –
transparency/reporting
Coherence with other
legislation
Source: European Commission, 2019, UWWTD Evaluation
UWWTD - Evaluation

4. What is new? - Water Quality
Rain waters
(Art 5/Annex 5)
Integrated
management
Indicative
objective
Hierarchy of
actions
Smaller cities
(Art. 3 and 4)
From 2.000 to
1.000
inhabitants
EU standards +
more control for
small individual
treatment plants
Nutrients
(Art. 7)
Reinforced
standards for
N/P removal
Applied in more
areas
And for all
facilties above
100.000 pe
Micropollutants
(Art. 8)
New emission
standards
Risk based
approach
• Large agglo /
facilities first
• Smaller (above
10.000 pe)- only
where there is a
risk

5. 5
EPR – in practice
Member States
Wastewater
operators
Producer
Organisations
(PRO)
European
Union
Harmonised rules:
Full cost coverage, fees calculation
Control mechanisms
Monitoring results
Recognition
Control
Contracts, invoices
Auditors
Statistics, contributions
Producers
Importers
Control statistics,
accounts
Reporting

6. What is new? - Energy & Climate, Circular Economy
ENERGY,
CLIMATE • Energy Audits >
10.000 p.e. (Art. 11)
• Energy neutrality by
2040
• Monitoring GHG
emissions
CIRCULAR
ECONOMY
• Track at source (Art.
14)
• Systematically
consider water re-
use (Art. 15)
• Sludge with waste
hierarchy + DA on
recycling re-use for
N/P (Art. 20)
DA = Delegated Act

7. Operational costs – EU wastewater operators
Transparency,
Performance
Polluters pays
Health, access to
sanitation
Monitoring &
Reporting
Coherence
Problem definition – Governance
Source: OECD, 2022, Transparency and the performance of
wastewater collection and treatment services

8. What is new? - Governance
Transparency
Information to
the public
Access to justice,
compensations
and penalties
(IED)
Monitoring &
Reporting
National/EEA
dataset regularly
updated
National
programmes
reported only if
non compliance
Access to
sanitation
Vulnerable and
marginalised
people
Access in cities
Health
Cooperation of
health/water
authorities
Covid and anti-
microbial
resistance
monitoring

9. Information to the public, supporting performance
Direct information to customers connected to the
wastewater system annually e.g. invoicing:
• Compliance with collection and treatment requirements
• Volume of wastewater collected and treated for the
household / entity
• Price of collection and treatment for the customer per
litre and per m3
• Comparison of annual customer discharges
User friendly information to the public online, up-to-
date, at agglomeration level

10. Performance indicators for clean water services (1/2)
Proposal for UWWTD Recast DWD
Normalisation factors - Agglomeration:
• Total load (p.e.) % collected, % treated, % IS.
• Justification: load not collected or treated
Normalisation factors - Water supply:
• Area, number of people supplied, how water is
produced and treated
Quality of discharged wastewater:
• WWTPs - annual average concentration, pollutant loads
• IS – pollutant load estimate
• SWO and urban runoff – pollutant load estimate
Quality of drinking water supplied:
• Monitoring results
• Monitoring frequency
• Including indicator parameters, hardness, Ca, Mg, K
Towards energy and climate neutrality:
• Energy per cubic metre treated, per WWTP
• Renewable energy produced/avoided, per WWTP
• Tonnes of CO2 produced / avoided, per WWTP
• GHG emissions produced/avoided, per agglomeration
Water supply system efficiency and protection of
water resources:
• Leakage assessment
• Reported leakage rates
• Leakage action plan
• Compliance:
• For collection and treatment requirements
• Comparison with set limit values
Compliance:
• Exceedance of parametric values
• Information on potential danger to health
• Health and consumption advice
• Risk assessment of supply systems

11. Performance indicators for clean water services (2/2)
Proposal for UWWTD Recast DWD
Transparency:
• Competent authority, wastewater operator,
ownership structure
Transparency:
• Water supplier, ownership structure
Collection and treatment costs:
• Total investment costs
• Total annual operational costs
• Average annual costs capex and opex, per
household and m3
Investment plans, with foreseen impacts on
costs and benefits
Water supply costs:
• Total costs
• Variable costs
• Costs related to access for water
Cost recovery and prices:
• Structure of tariff per cubic metre collected and
treated
• Breakdown of costs for collection, treatment,
administration etc.
Cost recovery and prices:
• Structure of tariff per cubic metre supplied
• Price of water supplied, per litre and cubic
metre
Quality of service:
• Customer complaints
Quality of service:
• Customer complaints
• Customer advice - reduction of water
consumption, avoid health risks

12. Costs coverage, Affordability
Share of water expenditures in households' disposable income (2011-
2015 average) Source: OECD based on Eurostat
Water tariffs
(1,8 bn/year by
2040)
• Average increase
2,3% in 2040
• Affordability not
endangered
Public Budget -
(0,8 bn/year by
2040)
• EU funds for
water: EUR 2
bn/year
• Average public
budget for water:
EUR 30 bn/year
Producer
responsibility (1,2
bn/year by 2040)
• 0,5 to 0,9% max
reduction of profit
margins
•Or 0,6% max of
annual expenses
(2,7 € year/person
max)
Total Costs: EUR
3,8 billion/year in
2040
Total monetized
benefits: EUR 6,6
bn/year in 2040
Now: 70% water tariffs and 30% public budget
Proposal: 3 sources of financing

13. Next steps
Transposition
into Member
States Laws
Final text
approved
Council and
Parliament
Proposal of
the
Commission

14. Thank you!

15. Source: JRC 2022
Remaining loads
- 100,000,000 200,000,000 300,000,000
BOD
Nitrogen
Phosphorus
E.Coli
Micro
pollutants
Population equivalent per year
SWO Urban run off
Non Compliant IAS Compliant IAS
Small Agglo Non compliant load

16. Nutrients, micro pollutants
Loads of N (tonnes/year) to EU regional seas by source (JRC)
Number of pharmaceuticals detected in surface, ground
or drinking water. Source: Aus der Beek et al., 2015

17. Green Deal
Annual electricity used vs size of treatment plants, source: Ganora et al, 2019
- 2,000,000 4,000,000 6,000,000 8,000,00010,000,000
12,000,000
14,000,000
16,000,000
Infrastructures
Effluents
Process
Energy use
GHG emissions - Waste Water
(EU 27, tons CO2e/year)
GHG emission from waste water sector – EU 27, source JRC 2022
Sewage sludge reuse in EU-28 in the period 2012-2016
(% of sewage sludge reused in soil and agriculture