23 municipalities receive animals extra bill

« Of course, it requires that the affected wastewater companies can get the efforts of the water tax. In addition, it must be already known solutions that are easy to install, » says Carl-Emil Larsen, who, however, predicts that it will be difficult to make the effort work.

The treatment plants must have new discharge permits where the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has worked for a few years on the guidance that will enable the municipalities to issue them.

« The question is whether the municipalities can now issue discharge permits, so that the effort can come to an impact on time, » says Carl-Emil Larsen.

DANVA also points out that the agreement has not taken into account local plans to close or merge treatment plants in several places.

« There are many places where there are concrete plans to shut down wastewater treatment plants, and it doesn’t make sense to start making new initiatives. You have to take care that you don’t end up making error or double investment, » says Carl Emil Larsen.

The political agreement determines that the efforts with the additional requirements for wastewater treatment plants reduce nitrogen emissions by 572 tonnes.

According to the Ministry of the Environment, the agreement means:

There will be an annual increase of between 29 and 268 kroner for an average household – double for families with 3 children – in the 22 affected municipalities that have to pay for the efforts.

Today, most Danish plants cleanse better than many places in Europe. The new agreement requires that the treatment plants be cleaned down to 3.5 mg/l for nitrogen, corresponding to approx. one-third of the current EU requirements for nitrogen of 10 mg/l. And for phosphorus, the agreement requires the wastewater treatment plants to clean down to 0.1 mg/l, which is a tenth of the EU requirement of 1-1½ mg/li The waters that are adversely affected by wastewater.