Influence of environmental regulations on eutrophication by the example of ukrainian legislation on total phosphorous

Abstract

Since phosphates are ones of the key components causing eutrophication of water bodies, every country has to have clear legislation on them. Comparing standards of the EU and Ukraine concerning total phosphorous in wastewater, effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), drinking water, and consumer detergents, the paper shows how the difference of legislation makes legal the eutrophication of water bodies in Ukraine. As demonstrated, the current Ukrainian regulations do not oblige strictly municipal WWTPs to remove phosphorus compounds from wastewater, although the EU has rigid requirements therein. Instead, Ukraine forbids discharging wastewater with more than 5 mg/l of total phosphorous into the municipal sewage system, though many local regulations in EU-countries allow higher values, e.g. such cities of Germany as Berlin, Hannover, and Düsseldorf permit up to 50 mg/l of total phosphorous in their municipal sewage systems. This is mostly because only natural human metabolism causes up to 10 mg/l of total phosphorous in wastewater, so, to reduce total phosphorous to 5 mg/l, every domestic house would oblige to have its own WWTP. All this leads to the situation where water companies in Ukraine, instead of modernization their\xa030-40\xa0years old WWTPs, fine their clients due to the steep requirements. For instance, the municipal water company Khmelnitskvodokanal won the case No 20/4901\xa0against the company “Khmelnitsk plant of experimental production” that discharged into the municipal sewage system in the town of Khmelnitsk its wastewater with 17.42 mg/l phosphates (or 5.68 mg/l as total phosphorous), usual concentration for the EU. Moreover, phosphonates in detergents also contribute to the eutrophication. Another problem is that, due to the lack of trained qualified staff, the amount of total phosphorous determined in different laboratories in the same sample of water may differ by several times.