Drinking Water in Germany: A Case Study of High Quality Drinking Water - Global Drinking Water Management and Conservation - page 257

Fig. 12.5 The capacities of sewage plants (BMU 2011 )

A total of 10 billion cubic meters of wastewater (i.e. sewage water, rainwater,
and in ltration water) was treated in the public sewage plants in 2010 (Umweltb-

undesamt, German Federal Environment Agency 2014 ). Of this, only 0.03 percent
was not treated by a biological wastewater treatment process (see Fig. 12.6 ). With
the implementation of Annex 1 of the Waste Water Ordinance and EU Urban
Waste Water Treatment Directive, as well as the development of wastewater
treatment over the last decades in Germany, by 2010, 98.1 percent of municipal
mechanical biological plants have the capacity to remove nitrogen and phosphate,

which has brought a signi

-

cant improvement in biological water quality.
Furthermore, from 2002 to 2011, the share of wastewater treated in biological
sewage plants with selective removal of nutrients increased to 82 percent. As a con-
sequence, in 2011, on average the municipal wastewater treatment plants achieved a
reduction in nutrient loads of 91 percent for phosphorus and 81 percent for nitrogen,
which clearly exceeded the requirements of the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment
Directive (Directive 91/271/EEC) (Umweltbundesamt, German Federal Environment
Agency 2014). This is a reduction of 75 percent for both substances taken together.
The 98 percent biological treatment is a high standard and one would expect that
most of the contaminants, including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and personal care
products (PPCPs), would be removed or oxidized. The most recent (July 2014)
information we have is that where surface water is used for drinking water, greater
efforts are made to clean up the wastewater. For example, in North Rhine and
Westfalia, wastewater treatment now includes charcoal ltration,

and ozonation. Nevertheless, it would be good to see results of tests that show the
ef

ltration, membrane

cacy of the treatment and its effects on levels of PPCPs inGermany (see Sect. 12.5 ).