More Romanians now have access to a safe source of drinking water thanks to an EU-funded project to modernise and extend Arad County’s water and sewer infrastructure.
- 20 December 2017
By updating Arad County’s drinking and waste water collection infrastructure, this project helped provide the area’s 252 876 residents with a reliable source for clean drinking water. As a result, residents are benefiting from an improved quality of life and better overall health.
Arad County is located in Romania’s Sud-Vest Oltenia, along the country’s border with Hungary, and includes the townships of: Arad, Curtici, Ineu, Lipova, Nădlac, Pâncota, Pecica, Sântana, Fântânele, Ghioroc, Cuvin, Miniș, Macea, Păuliș, Șiria and Galșa. Thanks to the clean water provided by this project, each of these townships and their surrounding environments are also benefiting from a significant reduction in pollution.
Improved infrastructure
The project involved work on both the county’s drinking water supply system and the wastewater collection and treatment system. In terms of the drinking water infrastructure, the project rehabilitated Ineu’s water source well, along with extending 5 km and rehabilitating 10 km of the system’s distribution networks. As to the county’s wastewater collection and treatment systems, the project extended 28 km of the sewage network and rehabilitated an additional 5 km. It also updated two wastewater pumping stations, built two km of transfer sewer collector and refurbished six treatment plants.
As a direct result of these efforts, 98 % of the population in the project area are now connected to the water network and thus have a reliable source of quality drinking water. Furthermore, 96 % of the population is connected to the sewage system.
More work ahead
This project completes phase II of an ongoing effort to improve the entire region’s water infrastructure. During phase I, which ran during the 2007 – 2013 programming period, around one third of the updates were implemented. With the completion of phase II, around 51 % of all scheduled work is now complete, with the remaining work expected to be completed by the end of 2019. Currently, project progress in Arad County stands at 4 % of the work completed.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Extension and modernisation of water supply and waste water treatment systems in Arad County - Phase II” is EUR 42 938 974, with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 27 443 118 through the “Large Infrastructure” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period.