Investment of 72,9 million euros to upgrade Romanian water services

The region Mehedinti in South-West Romania is improving water and wastewater services. The upgrade of Romanian water services consists of rehabilitating four wastewater treatment plants and 27 wastewater pumping stations. Moreover two hundred kilometres of water infrastructure, thirteen new water-pumping stations and ten new reservoirs will be realised.

The investment will improve the quality of drinking water to meet EU directives and will increase access to wastewater services. The upgrade will take place in ten towns, including the capital Drobeta Turnu Severin. As a result, more than 15,000 people will be connected to the drinking water network and almost 30.000 people to the wastewater network. According to the latest maps of the European Environment Agency showing the status of the implementation of the Urbanisation Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) none of the Romanian WWTP’s are at the moment compliant to European regulation.

Finance
The projects are financed by several organisations but the majority of the money is coming from Europe. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is extending a long-term 5.7 million euro loan and the Cohesion Fund of the European Union is contributing a grant of 57.1 million euro. The Romanian state is providing 8.7 million euro and the remaining 1.4 million euro will be covered by local budgets.

The regional water operator SC Secom SA is responsible for the implementation. George Lupulescu, general director of SC Secom SA states: “The implementation of the project marks an important step in improving water and wastewater treatment, while the EBRD’s environmental and social policies support the development of SC Secom SA as the regional water operator.”

SC Secom SA is the 24th regional water operator in Romania to receive financing under the EBRD’s Romania EU Cohesion Fund Water Co-Financing Framework (R2CF). The facility was approved in November 2010 with a volume of 200 million euro and further increased by 130 million euro in September 2012. To date the EBRD has mobilised over 2 billion euro of EU funding in Romania’s water and wastewater facilities.

Danube region
South-West Romania is located in the Danube river basin. The Danube region is facing a huge challenge providing affordable water and wastewater services to everyone. One of the conclusions of a recent report on water and wastewater services in the Danube area was that they are facing an investment gap of approximately 2,5 billion euros per year