Financing Water Supply, Sanitation and Flood Protection

Annex A. Costs of addressing emerging challenges in wastewater collection and treatment

The Table below summarises data collected in the literature, on the possible costs of emerging challenges for water service provision. The focus is on managing combined sewer overflows, on enhancing the treatment of waste water to address contaminants of emerging concern and other priority substances, and related issues.

Note that although there will be added costs for managing microplastics in the water services system, there is as yet scant information about this. The major costs are likely to be in the sludge handling, as the continuing spreading of sludge to land (preferred option in many member states) may be compromised if microplastics and other micropollutants are not controlled at source.

Table A A.1. Cost estimates for managing emerging and associated pollutants

Source and applicability	Relevance	Cost ranges
CSO spills
USA – reduce/stop spills (Renn, 2016)	Costs for the entire USA for compliance with Clean Water Act	$48bn US capital remediation bill for CSOs. Not only for emerging pollutants.
EU (EC, 2011)	Relates to the operational costs of CSOs, not only for emerging pollutants	Additional costs for adding to the PS list €18 per cap per year. EurEau (2012) suggest this estimate is too low. Actual costs will be some 25-50% added on to original annual costs, prior to the revision.
Belgium (Dirckxe et al, 2011) (25,000pe)	Relates to the operational costs of CSOs, not only for emerging pollutants	€10m – 100m disconnection to reduce spills between 30 and 100% €4m – 10m for storage tanks to reduce spills by between 60 and 100% €100k – 900k throttle through flows reducing spills by 20 – 35% €100k – 700k RTC to reduce spills by 10 – 75%
Germany (Tondera et al, 2017)	Added costs for emerging pollutants	Costs for disinfection only: Capital costs €275/m3 treated, operational cost €5-10/m3.
EurEau (2018) Table 2.4. Spain.	For 10 years. Relates to the operational costs of CSOs, not only for emerging pollutants	€3 per cap/year (includes climate change)
Wastewater Treatment
Finland (Katko, 2016)	Refers to all enhancements to treatment	Enhancing removal of nitrogen from 70 to 90% (450 WWTP) €400-600m. For phosphorus €200-600m. Recovered P value only €2-4m for further costs of €60-90m. Pharmaceuticals and hazardous substances removal €700-1400m.
Germany (Entec, 2011).	Both compliance costs for treatment and added costs for certain emerging pollutants	Overall compliance costs €5bn – 12bn, depending on treatment. Tertiary treatment €5-11m per WWTP with added energy and CO2 costs. Consequent additional sludge disposal costs €86m – 256bn per year. Average NPV capital and operating costs are €398 per p.e. and €295 per p.e. for Diclofenac removal using either GAC (99% removal) or UV (57% removal). Case study for WWTP in Ulm, with 440,000 population, costs of €40m.
Spain (Entec, 2011)	Emerging pollutants deemed to not add to costs in this case	No significant additional costs as the PEC is lower than the specified EQS.
UK (Comber, 2007)	Additional costs for certain emerging substances	Added costs to tackle APIs for UK as a whole €10bn, or potentially some €1.5m per WWTP. This assumes all 6800 WWTP need to be upgraded. Added costs for pharmaceutical removal was some €0.8 – 25m capital and €0.02 – 4.1m operational costs per year.
UK (EC, 2011)	Additional costs for certain emerging substances	Cost estimates for E2 removal: €18 per cap per year.
UK (Entec, 2011)	Additional costs for certain emerging substances	Yorkshire Region 48 WWTP costs: €725m, with operational costs of €45m per year. Discounted costs are €1020m discounted over 25 years. Scaling these figures up to England and Wales: €12 - 14bn.
Switzerland (Entec, 2011)	Additional costs for certain emerging substances	756 WWTP in Switzerland. Diclofenac removal costs: €495 – 591m capital costs and €56-76m operational costs (p.e. ranges from 14,000 – 590,000) – total costs were some €0.03-0.3/year per m3 treated. Overall
Switzerland (Beiber et al, 2018)	Additional costs for certain emerging substances	123 WWTP, serving >80,000 population, discharging to surface water and or into drinking water sources, need upgrading out of 756 total. Some 50% of Swiss effluent will be treated with 80% removal of micropollutants. Total costs are €1bn. Annual costs are €115m. Discounted total costs are €2.8bn. Charges capped at €8 per year/inhabitant.
Switzerland (EC, 2011)	Additional costs for certain emerging substances	Additional 5 – 25% on conventional treatment costs, or some €11-18 per inhabitant.
Cyprus (EurEau, 2018)	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€1 per cap/year (includes climate change)
Denmark (EurEau, 2018)	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€96 per cap/year (includes climate change)
Spain (EurEau, 2018)	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€3 per cap/year (includes climate change)
France (EurEau, 2018)	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€22 per cap/year (includes climate change)
Italy (EurEau, 2018) Table 2.4	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€17 per cap/year (includes climate change) and covers all water services, not only WW.
Ireland (EurEau, 2018) Table 2.4	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€17 per cap/year (includes climate change) and covers all water services, not only WW.
Norway (EurEau, 2018) Table 2.4	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€44 per cap/year (includes climate change) and covers all water services, not only WW.
Norway (EurEau, 2018) Table 2.4	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€44 per cap/year (includes climate change) and covers all water services, not only WW.
Netherlands (EurEau, 2018) Table 2.4	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€180 per cap/year (includes climate change) and covers all water services, not only WW.
Other
Spain (EurEau, 2018) Table 2.4	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€3 per cap/year (includes climate change) for drinking water remediation
Denmark (EurEau, 2018) Table 2.4	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€21 per cap /year (includes climate change) for drinking water remediation
France (EurEau, 2018) Table 2.4	For 10 years Additional costs for certain emerging substances	€0.1 per cap /year (includes climate change) for drinking water remediation
EU (EC, 2011)	Additional costs for certain emerging substances, but for added monitoring	The 20,900m m3 of drinking water abstracted for drinking water production require pesticide removal costing €0.028/m3. Estimates indicate that some 74% of surface waters used for this need treatment. Monitoring costs across MS, for additional PHS and pharmaceuticals as some €15-36m per year, adding 22-52% to the original annual monitoring costs of €69m (51-97m) prior to the additions to PHS. Of this, added pharmaceutical monitoring costs are €3-6m per year.
UK (EC, 2011)	Nickel	Nickel is highest in UK waters. Removal costs are €2bn capital with added ongoing costs.

Source: Data compiled by Richard Ashley, for the OECD (Ashley R., Horton B., Boxall J., Speight V., 2018, Financing Water in 28 European Countries. Baseline Report, Background Paper (unpublished).