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State of the Environment in Riga 2001
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 Water

  WASTEWATER TREATMENT
 
Due to economical crisis the total amount of wastewaters has tendency decline already since the begining of 1990s.In order to improve the quality of water in the Gulf of Riga and other surface bodies, one of the main tasks would be to ensure that wastewater generated in the city is properly treated (see Table 12, Table 14 ). Wastewater in Riga is being treated at the Daugavgriva treatment plant, which is the largest of its kind in the Baltic States . This facility can cope with wastewater generated by as many as 400-500 thousand inhabitants (or 350 thsd.m3 of wastewater per day). Over the recent years, a number of positive tendencies have developed in the sphere of wastewater treatment:
  • major decrease volume of industrial and household wastewater produced
  • less contamination of surface water occurring from wastewater residues
  • smaller amounts of heavy metal residues in the wastewater sludge which permits its use in fertilisation of agricultural lands in the rural areas around Riga ( from 81 to 92% of biologically activated sludge produced at the treatment plant) (see Figure 33 )

Annually, 35 000 to 40 000 tons of sludge are produced

However, a range of problems remain to be addressed:

  • not all wastewater produced in the city is treated
  • the technically outdated sewage collection system poses an environmental threat
  • collected rain-water is not treated
  • not all industrial sites do the necessary pre-treatment of their wastewaters

The total length of sewage network in Riga has increased year by year. It was 897 km at the end of 2001. (Municipal enterprise "Rigas Udens", Annual Report 2001), which means that 70 % of population is connected to centralized wastewater collection system (Action Plan for Implementation of Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, 2001.


 

 

This page was last updated: 2003.03.31.