Ecological and economic aspects of the discharge of domestic wastewater in the Baikal natural area

Environmental and economic risks for enterprises operating centralized wastewater disposal systems are represented by both the risk of soil contamination in case of emergency wastewater spills and the risk of contamination of water bodies by wastewater discharge into them. The amount of payments for damage to the soil cover can be in the hundreds and millions of rubles and depends mainly on the area of the sewage spill. Modern methods of encouraging water users to use better wastewater treatment facilities and technologies are mainly reduced to increasing the amount of payments for non-compliance with established requirements for the quality of treated water. Such an approach will inevitably lead to an increase in utility tariffs. Economic incentives for water users to introduce the best available technologies in water treatment are aimed at applying increasing coefficients when calculating fees for negative impacts. At the same time, for operating organizations, it would be advisable to provide a system of lowering coefficients with a significant reduction in the amount of pollutants discharged in comparison with the established regulatory indicators. Such a differentiated approach will create a real interest of operating organizations in ensuring the quality of wastewater treatment and in upgrading equipment.