Municipal effluent standards in the Czech Republic

The paper explains the need for proper wastewater treatment in the Czech Republic and the development of legislation for effluent standards. A step-wise development from environmental quality standards to emission effluent standards is described. The necessity of retaining the environmental quality standards in the new legislation under specific conditions of the Czech Republic is explained. The paper describes the proposal by the Czech Association of Wastewater Treatment Experts to change the absolute effluent standards to standards with a stochastic character. The numerical values of effluent standards in the Czech Republic depend on the wastewater treatment plant size. Thus the wastewater treatment processes characteristic of individual size categories are described.