Organisationsformen und Umweltabgaben im kommunalen Gewaesserschutz

The municipal protection of inshore waters is part of the water supply industry. Both water supply service and waste water disposal is in succession brought force by a network of separate fresh water and waste water pipes, besides on a local scale. Environmental policy instruments of waters protection is the con-struction of sewage plants according to state-of the-art technology and financial incentives to save water consumption and the quantity of waste water, also to avoid the emission of harmful substances by the way of a municipal waste water charge that includes a water pollution charge. Both the more than proportional increase of the municipal waste water charge and the high prospective demand for investment into sewage works has brought about the search for new organizational forms and different methods concerning water supply and waste water disposal. Above all the participation of private enterprises and the local and supralocal cooperation between municipalities are discussed both directed at cutting costs. Water pollution charges as implemented in Germany intend to support the enforcement of the relevant environmental law and to charge the residual water pollution but not to obtain public receipts. It is debatable whether the inclusion of the social costs of water pollution - if known at all by the environmental authority - into the municipal waste water charge is allowed. A further proposal for an intended reform of the waste water charge is to consider the factual instead of the presumed amount of pollutants as the basis of valuation.