Water network - Romanians visit the Netherlands
Visit of 24 Romanian politicians and water managers to the provinces of Overijssel and Gelderland, its water boards and drinking water company Vitens
21.12.2005 |Sascha Gabizon
In January 2005, Teleorman County Council, Giurgiu County Council and the Provinces of Overijssel and Gelderland from The Netherlands signed a cooperation agreement that has as aims contributing to meeting the demands for the European integration by initiating cooperation between regions from EU member states, exchanging experience and experts, cooperating in the field of water management, and also in other fields, establishing a joint activity program.
The first project, that has started immediately after signing the agreement, is called “Teleorman Water Project”, and it is subsidized by The Association of Municipalities from The Netherlands – VNG.
The project leader in the Netherlands is Mr. Erik van Dijk, of the Province of Overijsel.
Issues:
- Training the experts from Teleorman County by organising working visits to the waterboards from the Province of Overijssel;
- Meetings between the representatives of the local authorities from Teleorman County and from the provinces of Overijssel and Gelderland;
- Debates relating to continuing Teleorman Water Project and identifying new possible financing sources.
A delegation of 24 municipal representatives took part in the training visit to the Netherlands from 4 – 11 December 2005:
The delegation was formed by representatives of the local authorities and of the water companies from Teleorman County, representatives of the Teleorman County School Inspectorate as well as of the Company “Apele Romane”. (see list of participants below)
WECF presentation on 9th of December 2005
The workshop on 9 December took place in the House of the Dutch Province and were structured into two components.
The first presentation was given by the Stichiting Drinkwater Romenie on the drilling of drinking water bore holes in rural areas. This organization also includes two young men who successfully completed specialization courses in Germany concerning the drilling of bore holes in the rural area, as well as representatives of a company specialized in bore hole drilling equipment.
The second presentation was given by Mrs. Margriet Samwell, a representative of the WECF Women’s Environmental Organization, who presented the ECOSAN project – “ecological sanitation in rural areas”. Mrs. Samwell mentioned that the project had been successfully implemented in Eastern European countries, and in Romania the first ECOSAN pilot project had been implemented in the village Garla Mare (3000 pop.), Mehedinti County. Developing an ECOSAN ecological system leads to closing the circuit in waste water and sanitation management.
Garla Mare - a water and ecosanitation party
In the perspective of implementing such a project in Teleorman, there were several questions concerning practical aspects, the costs for carrying out such a system, as well as the financial advantages of implementing this project with material and labour from Romania.
Mr. Erik van Dijk proposed that in March 2006, a Romanian delegation formed of mayors, representatives of the County School Inspectorate, school principals, contractors, and representatives of Teleorman County Council, should carry on a visit to Garla Mare in order to see how the project had been implemented there, as an example of good practices. Mr. van Dijk also mentioned that in 2006 the Province of Overijssel would finance the implementation of the ECOSAN project in 1 or 2 schools in the rural area of Teleorman and in 10-20 households in rural places, as well as the execution of a septic tank in the area of project implementation. On this occasion, Mr. Nicolae Mohanu, mayor of Turnu Magurele municipality, expressed his willingness of implementing this project in two peripheral districts of the municipality.
List of Rumanian participants for the visit in Netherlands 4 –10 dec.2005
