The River Basin Committee: a new institution for water management
Romania is a country with relatively scarce water resources, a great variety of runoffs in time and an irregular distribution over the territory. Such a situation explains the concern of the Romanian State since the beginning of the 20th century, for a judicious regulation of water resources use and protection. The first law on "Water Regime in Romania" was therefore adopted in 1926.
After 1944, owing to the social and economic development, a new water policy became necessary to meet the more and more important demands. This new policy was put into a concrete form with the elaboration of masterplans and with the adoption of the river basin as a basic unit for the quantitative and qualitative management of water resources.
Thanks to this new arrangement, all necessary measures were better integrated to meet water demands, water resources quality and quantity conservation and the protection against water harmful effects.
After 1989, the new socioeconomic conditions in Romania led to the establishment of the Autonomous Water Authority "Apele Romane" with the objective of a water management based on modern principles.
These changes in structure and concept on the scale of the society and water sector resulted in changes and adaptations of the legislation. Accordingly, a new water law was drawn up and approved by Parliament.
This new "Water Law" took into account the elements of former legislations, while introducing new concepts : the "polluter-pays" principle, public participation in decision making, financial and ecocomic mechanism, creation of River Basin Committees.
Thanks to the establishment of River Basin Committees, the cooperation which already existed between water management units and their main beneficiaries was institutionalized. A decentralization of decisions and a better involvement of the public will become effective with time. Thereby, River Basin Committees are composed of representatives of local governmental authorities, local authorities, non-governmental organizations, water management units and users.
They will be able to influence water management policies in general and make decisions at river basin level. Owing to the wide range of interests represented in the River Basin Committee, from the agent responsible for environmental protection to the user, all aspects of the water management issue will be known and thus making better decisons will be possible to achieve a better use of water resources.
In the same way, the participation of the public, who will therefore be better informed, will lead to an awareness of problems and to the acceptance of measures, works proposed and solidarity between users.
Although River Basin Committees are recent institutional structures in Romania, we hope that all interested parties will adapt rapidly. We are grateful to the countries which have supported us for a quick integration of the River Basin Committee in water management in our country, to France, Great-Britain and the United-States in particular.
Florin Stadiu
Ministry of Water, Forestry and Environmental Protection
Fax : (40-1) 312 42 27
Cleanup processes for wastewater discharged by refineries and other chemical industries
The Autonomous Water Authority "Apele Romane" of Piolesti administrates the Prahova and Teleajen rivers. In this region, chemical and petrochemical industries have negative effects on water pollution.
Both rivers were very polluted until a short time ago, especially by hydrocarbons and iron ash.
But the situation has changed with facilities designed with the support of Apele Romane.
Thanks to these installations, the concentration of hydrocarbons in wastewater has been reduced from 80-120 mg/l to 2-4 mg/l and iron ash from 1200-1600 mg/l to 30-60 mg/l. They are also used for water aeration.
V. Calamaz
"Apele Romane", Piolesti.
New law on environmental protection
The new law on environmental protection of December 29, 1995 is based on a few basic strategic principles and elements such as caution during decision making, prevention of ecological risks, preservation of biodiversity and specific ecosystems, priority removal of pollutants which directly threaten human health, establishment of the national environmental integrated monitoring system, protection and improvement of environmental quality and rehabilitation of degraded zones, as well as the development of international cooperation.
The law plans the application of the "polluter-pays" principle and the possibility for the Government to grant tax cuts or exemptions and other fiscal terms to industrialists who replace dangerous substances in manufacturing processes or who invest in clean technologies or other special measures for ecological protection or rehabilitation.
The principles of the new law ensure a sustainable development and the access to information for the population and non-governmental organizations who may appeal to the court within the environmental protection framework, whomever may be the person who has been wronged.
The new water law, which has just been approved by Parliament, has been drawn up in close correlation with this environmental law of December 29, 1995.
Gentiana Serbu
"Apele Romane"
Fax : (40-1) 312 21 74
Pilot South Bug river basin
Reform of the financing system for water protection
In 1995, Ukraine established measures for financing the implementation of the new river basin system. A Governmental Decree was drafted by the 7 Regional Administrations of the South Bug river basin to create the State Regional Environmental Commission with the aim of drawing up a strategy for water resources management.
Under the conditions of economic reform, with the new market economy, a special mechanism was needed to finance water protection. In accordance with the existing legislation, the funds coming from payments for water utilization, water pollution and for violations of water legislation go to the budgets of some 600 governmental bodies of the basin. But, under conditions of economic crisis, this income is used for different purposes than water protection.
Therefore, this income must be centralized into a special account, and appropriate changes in the existing legislation are needed.
Another problem is the lack of a clear delimitation of responsibilities between ministries regarding water resources management. The State Committee for Water Management is responsible for building hydraulic works, regulating flowrates in the basin rivers and controlling water resources utilization. The Water Management Departments of the South Bug river basin are supervised by this Committee and have such tasks as: work planning, exploitation of water systems, monitoring, water allocation and authorizations for water withdrawals.
The research on the possibility of establishing a financial river basin agency, while taking into account the existing legislation and the limited financial resources of the new economy, underlined the necessity of adding new functions to the existing river basin management bodies such as levying and collecting the costs of water protection. The right to manage and use these amounts was given to the State Environmental Commission.
This Commission will be composed of representatives from the 7 regional administrations of the South Bug river basin and the main water user ministries. It will be headed by the representative from the Ministry for Environmental Protection and Nuclear Safety. In the future, the Commission could be opened to other water users such as municipalities and non-governmental organizations.
The transformation of the institutional structures for water management will require efforts to make changes from the traditional to the territorial principle.
Prerequisites for the setting up of this reform could be drawn up from the work of Ukrainian and French specialists. They are: changes in the country's legislation, raising the interest of enterprises and population in a more efficient use of water charges, setting up relations between the public and the management bodies.
Anatoliy Tkachov
Ministry for Environmental Protection and Nuclear Safety
Fax : (380-44) 228 5072
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