In September 2003, 11 Romanian experts from the local environment authorities
and polluting industries in the Upper Tisza region and the Mures Basin visited
Austria. They participated in a nine-days’ study tour on Austrian
wastewater management and water monitoring . The programme was sponsored
by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and organised by Viennabased
Zinke Environment Consulting in response to a request by Apele Romane, the
Romanian Waters National Administration.
The study tour started with a presentation of the modern wastewater collection,
treatment and cleaning system at the industrial paper and cellulose plant
SAPPI near Graz. This was followed by lectures on sustainable waste management
and technology at the University of Mining located in Leoben (Montanuniversität
Leoben). The Romanian experts were then taken to the Paulisturz landfill
for municipal and industrial waste, where they got a hands-on introduction
to the new standards in landfill technologies and site remediation that
allow better prevention of groundwater pollution. They were impressed to
find out that at the Paulisturz landfill, all salt compounds can be eliminated
from the collected leachate via “reverse osmosis” and 80% of
the cleaned water can be released into the mountain creek.
The visit to the Erzberg open cast mine – the next stop on their study
tour - was for the Romanians a completely new experience. This impressive
abandoned mine has become an international tourist attraction, with huge
trucks driving visitors up and down the pyramid mountain. The group was
taken on a tour of the former underground mines, which have been turned
into a geology and mining museum. The experts learned that the leaking mine
water poses no heavy metal problem due to its high pH level, which is very
different from the rocks in the Romanian Maramures mountains characterised
by a high acidity level.
Other highlights of the study tour included visits
to the Boehler steel plant and the Leoben wastewater treatment plant as
well as presentations at the Technical Environment Control of the province
of Styria and the chemical laboratories of the Austrian environment agency
in Vienna.
The programme also included presentations given by Wolfgang Stalzer
of the Austrian Ministry for Water Management, Herwig Schuster of Greenpeace
and Mihaela Popovici of the ICPDR Secretariat. The visit was wrapped up
with an evaluation of the programme, which clearly showed that the participants
were satisfied and that they were taking a lot of new ideas back to their
home country.
www.unileoben.ac.at/engl/welcome_en.html,
www.rowater.ro