To protect the Danube River from pollution

Of the 100 percent water coverage of the Earth, according to expert estimates, only about one percent of water is available for human needs, reports Dnevnik.rs. Novi Sad needs a wastewater treatment plant.

Although the world seems to understand the seriousness of the situation, the reality is often different. The biggest enemy of drinking and human-accessible water is waste water discharged into rivers by various polluters, from households to heavy industry.

Dnevnik.rs reports that as early as the eighties, the Faculty of Science and Mathematics began research on waste water in Novi Sad. The goal was to create a cadastre of pollutants. The created cadastre showed some other alarming data, namely that more than 100,000 m3/day of waste water is poured into the Danube River, and that it represents a significant problem for the Danube itself, as a recipient and for the environment.

Dnevnik’s interlocutors point out that Novi Sad needs to build a wastewater treatment plant.

Serbia is no different from many other countries of the same level of development in terms of water and ecosystem conservation. However, significant progress in this field was made precisely through the implementation of the “Clean Serbia” project.

In October of last year, a meeting was held between ministers Goran Vesić and Irene Vujović and representatives of the CRBC company with the city management of Novi Sad, where the basic steps in the construction of a wastewater treatment plant in this city were defined.

The facility will be built through the implementation of the “Clean Serbia” project.

The “Clean Serbia” project is also a solution for the Danube and Sava

RTS reports that Austria and Hungary take care of the water quality in the Danube, but also the words of Sandra Dokić, State Secretary in the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Serbia, who stated that with the “Clean Serbia” project, Belgrade is also planning to build new facilities so that wastewater no longer goes to Danube and Sava.

European countries invest significantly more funds in the processing of wastewater, and with the treatment and protection itself, experts admit, they started much earlier than Serbia.

As reported by RTS, good examples are Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and The Netherlands, which treat 100 percent of their municipal wastewater. In addition to protecting the environment, often by processing waste water, they also provide part of the city’s energy for electricity and heating.

When it comes to the Danube River, Austria and Hungary are making sure that good quality water reaches Serbia.

“The quality of surface water in Austria is generally of good quality. Somewhere around 40 percent of surface waters are of very good and good quality, 30 percent are of moderate quality, 10 percent are unsatisfactory, and only four percent are of poor quality. And the Danube in Austria is of good quality, we have a lot of bathers here during the summer,” Dr. Bogdanka Radetić from the Austrian Environmental Protection Agency told RTS.

In Hungary, 53 percent of waste water is treated in accordance with the legislation of the European Union. “The purified water discharged into the Danube is analyzed regularly,” Laszlo Debreceni, director of the Budapest waterworks “Vizmuvek”, confirmed for RTS.

In the process of accession to the European Union, Serbia needs to fulfill the requirements from Chapter 27 that relate to the environment, and there are also standards that relate to the treatment of municipal waste water.

“In the coming period, what we need to do is to have 359 operational, functional waste water processing facilities and constructed or reconstructed sewage network. I can say that at the moment we have four billion for this area, and three billion from the Chinese loan. This is for the “Clean Serbia” program, which, in addition to the plants and sewers, should also build certain regional centers for waste management,” she said.

Sandra Dokić, who as an example of Belgrade’s intention to maintain the quality of water in the Danube at a satisfactory level, cited the preparation of project and technical documentation for the plant in Veliko Selo.