What is the alternative for the households? Is that alternative better or worse than being connected to public systems?

In the Netherlands, one is automatically connected, but in rural areas one can have exceptions if you do the treatment yourself. So the rules are on the pollution, not so much on the connection itself.

Well, rural people here use pit latrines (like in the Middle Age), have cattle in the yard and pollution laws or rules are not so well enforced.  Quite few houses (including that of my parents-in-law) have managed to get a toilet inside and a septic tank, but this is rather considered an expensive useless luxury by the neighbours.

Gosh, I know mandatory connection to WSS was used in Canada maybe 70-80 years ago, but still praise this policy.

Denmark does like the Netherlands. We are in the process of upgrading the last houses in rural areas with mini treatment plants than removes N and P.

“Pit latrines and cattle in the yard”, this reminds me the situation in Ukraine. Usually we also have drinking water village wells around and roughly half of them are polluted with too high or extremely high nitrate concentrations. I would propose the following solutions.

1. A simple alternative to pit latrines would be to use toilets where urine and faeces (together with sawdust) are collected separately and stored for a certain time before using it in agriculture or gardens. Please find on the Internet a description of details:

http://www.huussi.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Julia-Berezhna-ONLINE.pdf

http://www.wecf.eu/english/articles/2005/04/CSDecosan.php (Ecosan project in Romania too!)

2. More and more people want to have their daily shower and produce more than 100 L of sewage per day and often refuse to use dry toilets. In this case they have to use at least three septic tanks one behind the other. For this solution, you also can find more or less expensive variants on the Internet. For optimisation you can combine it with a reed bed.

3. The sewage treatment requirements depend on further point of views as soil types, distance to the groundwater table and to the next surface waterbody. To determine the requirements and to convince local stakeholders I use the following GIS-based methodology:

a) Preparation of basic maps of topography, soil types, landuse, and a village plan showing the location of septic tanks, wells and waters in the neighborhood. Software and maps are available from the Internet but need to be prepared.

b) Use of the “Pineland Septic Dilution Model” to calculate the expected waste water quality after treatment.

c) Use of ArcMap with the NLET extension to determine the dispersion of the groundwater pollution plume; this give you an idea of the flow direction and degradation of nitrates.

d) Use of GIS software (e.g. Mapwindow) to determine the catchment of the village wells and to see if they are at risk being polluted.

I know, it’s a lot of work but it helps to justify your demands and to convince people.

www.wecf.eu/english/articles/2005/04/CSDecosan.php

Thanks...this is a lot of interesting engineering knowledge and expertise...yes, I know about the ECOSAN projects promoted also in Romania by WECF, for instance (a case-study mentioned in my article on gender mainstreaming in WSS projects). Will study more on that.

Unfortunately, I am just a researcher (economist) in sustainable economic development, can only analyse and recommend efficient and effective environmental and economic policies and good practices...

Yes, I believe it should be mandatory. This way, maybe, there would be less problems to solve when floods occure - this phenomenon is quite frequent in Romania lately.

Actually, I have recommended this policy  in my post-doctoral dissertation, to be implemented locally (when WSS systems made with European SCF are ready), since there are important environmental, social and economic benefits.

The WTP for water sanitation is so low in our poor communities, and we can no longer wait too long to control wastewater discharges and to comply with the environmental acquis...

There may be two type of regulations introduced. One is to manage water use and sewage discharge under no public utility network condition, and the other regulation should trigger people connecting their sewage to centralised system and accessing centralised water supply.

Any such regulations should be based on cost benefit analysis which may give regard to environmental and hygienic risks and the population density. It may not be cost effective to manage high capital infrastructure in thinly populated areas. In such areas people may access water from individual bores or rainwater collection (e.g. roof water). Sewage may be discharged through septic tanks under prescribed conditions. Any such thinly populated areas should be monitored regularly and should have a population threshold level to trigger connection to centralised system.

Any such regulatory mechanism or policy must consider the economical consequences as well. This is because someone (either the community, local or central government) has to bear the cost of constructing and maintaining any centralised systems.

Dear Simona: Conceptually all houses/buildings should be connected to the public networks. However, if public health and environmental issues are not in risk, I suppose it is also a question of the quality and price of the service as any other public service as electricity, for example (assuming that the public networks already exist and that the houses/buildings have already internal networks of water supply and sewerage). Social tariffs and municipal aid for the connections and for adapting the utilities of the existing house/building should be given to the poorest people. In practice depends also from the regulations of the countries and municipalities and/or if they are (or can be) strictly followed or not. In Portugal the connection of the sanitary network of the buildings to the public system of sanitary sewers (whenever exists) is mandatory.

Yes, thank you. I happen to know that the WSS sector in Portugal has been successfully and sustainably developed  (involving SCF but also some PPP, if am not mistaken) in the last maybe 15-20 years, and should be an example to be followed by Romania as well...

Household connections to public networks of water supply and sewerage sanitation must be be mandatory for reasons:

1. Quality facilities

2. Cleaniness

3. Uniformity

4. Control on distribution and usage

5. For maintenance, charging nominal levy

6. For maintaining health standards

7. Etc. .. .

Wastewater treatment

In 2011, 65.9% of Peru’s households had access to a public sewer network. 

http://www.globalwaterintel.com/client_media/uploaded/20130220_GWM2014_Peru_sample_chapter.pdf

Household connection to public networks of water supply and sewerage sanitation should be mandatory as it facilitate better control and effective management of resources.