Chapter 4: Poland

(continued)

4.4 Project Opportunities

Major Environmental Problems

Comments from the respondents show that they perceived "major environmental problems" in a variety of ways. Some respondents indicated the poor legal framework and enforcement of legislation as a major issue in Poland, while others concentrated on technical and technological problems encountered during day-to-day operations.

Nevertheless, the following issues appeared the most important environmental problems needing to be addressed:

• organized and fugitive emission control (at industrial plants, but also in rural areas), including development and application of BATNEEC (Best Available Technology Not Entailing Excessive Cost) environmental technologies;
• water resources management, including water conservation systems;
• wastewater treatment, and sludge treatment and disposal, including development and application of BAT/BATNEEC environmental technologies;
• waste management, including waste collection systems, treatment and disposal; special attention to recycling methods and development of technologies focused on process waste utilization.

Energy issues were addressed by respondents only from the air pollution point of view; hence very few comments were recieved regarding energy as a separate environmental problem. Noise & vibration, and soil contamination issues, as well as occupational health & safety aspects were not perceived by the respondents as priority environmental problems in Poland.

Practically no respondents indicated the geographic location of specific problems. However, the 10 most polluted voivodships in the country account for over 60 percent of the total national environmental protection expenditures, so an insight into the regional distribution of environmental problems can be gained from examining environmental spending across voivodships. Table 4.14 presents voivodships where 1995 environmental expenditures exceeded USD 30 million.

Most of the voivodships listed in Table 4.14 are located in the Silesia and Black Triangle regions in the south and south-west of Poland. Others represent major industrial and economic centers located throughout the country (Plock, Warsaw, Szczecin, Lodz).

Significant Environmental Projects in Progress

• Implementation of a national environmental monitoring system (PIOS - State Environmental Protection Inspectorate)

• Construction of small wastewater treatment plants (5-500 PE) and installation of modern waste sludge dewatering units (EKOFIN-POL)

• Wastewater treatment equipment deliveries to wastewater treatment plants in Zamosc, Debica, Jarocin, Walbrzych, Wroclaw, Malbork, Ciechanow (PHARE and Finnish eco-conversion projects carried out by Metex-Huber)

• Replacement of the heating system for glass baths (70-80 percent reduction of NO_x emissions) and closure of the cooling water loop (glass mill, Jaroslaw)

• Conceptual design of phosphorus removal in wastewater treatment processes; agricultural application of phosphogypsum (chemical plant, Wizow)

• Construction of a combined municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plant (chemical plant, "Boruta," Zgierz)

• Installation of dust removal equipment; monitoring of ground water quality (Centra Poznan, battery manufacturer)

• Modernization of the existing wastewater treatment plant and sludge disposal process (ICC Paslek, diary/food processing)

• Construction of a combined industrial/municipal wastewater treatment plant; modernization of production processes (Organika-Zachem chemical plant, Bydgoszcz)

• Gas desulfurization in Konin power plant; dust removal and desulfurization process for Laziska power plant; desulfurization DRYPAC process for Lagisza power plant; dust removal system for Batory Foundry, Pokoj Foundry and Glogow Foundry; modernization of power plant Turow and Polaniec (ABB)

• Modernization and expansion of existing Wastewater treatment plants (Biprowod)

• Construction of a municipal watewater treatment plant for Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Lomza and Starachowice (CTBK Warsaw)

• Construction of fluidized bed boilers for district heating systems in Morag and Gostynin (Fluid Corporation)

• Waste management programs for seven voivodships located in south-eastern Poland (PROCHEM)

• Waste monitoring and records management/coordination program for Poland (PROCHEM)

• Air pollution control and modernization of power/heat generating installations (nitrogen compounds manufacturing, Zaklady Azotowe in Tarnów)

• Construction of desulfurization installations in Opole, Belchatow power generating plant;

• Construction of a wastewater treatment plants in Warsaw, Torun, Kalisz;

• Construction of a waste incineration plant in Warsaw.

The projects above are a small sample of the environmental projects currently being implemented, but do indicate that water resource protection and wastewater treatment, as well as air pollution control are the sectors where most activity is taking place in the environmental market in Poland.

Please note that the best and most comprehensive source of information on significant environmental projects recently completed or those currently under implementation are the annual reports issued by the respective voivodship environmental protection inspectorates (WIOS) in each of the 49 voivodships. The latest reports are available from local WIOS offices; a sample of the 1995 annual voivodship reports which were available during the survey is presented in Section 4.9.

World Bank Assistance Program

Support for continuing government efforts in the energy sector to increase energy efficiency and to minimize the environmental impact of power generating plants. Eight to 10 new projects were included:

• Ozone Depleting Substances Phase-Out Project (USD 6.2 million grant funding under the Global Environmental Facility, GEF);

• Power Generation Plants Modernization; two projects focused on rehabilitation and modernization of power generating facilities, including the installation of pollution abatement equipment at Dolna Odra and Rybnik power plants;

• First Geothermal and Environment Project; the project aims at reducing environmental pollution from domestic heating and small boilers by modernizing the district heating systems of Zakopane and Nowy Targ, and the usage of geothermal energy resources. Project cost is estimated at USD 50 million; project preparation is currently on hold. Implementing agency: Geotermia Podhalanska, Olcza, Stachonie 2A, 30-502, Zakopane, Poland. Tel: (48-165) 11-980. Fax: (48-165) 11-981.;

• Support to the Hard Coal Sector Restructuring Program; the USD 150 million project which will provide: indirect financial assistance for closure/merger of coal mines; incentive packages; mining site reclamation; and implementation of a variety of training and other programs to minimize the social costs of restructuring;

• Other possible projects in the energy sector include power transmission issues, continuation of geothermal/district heating projects, a gas project to diversify gas supply options, development of a new combined power/heat supply plant with private sector participation, heat supply and demand side management project.

The rehabilitation and modernization of municipal infrastructure:

• Water and wastewater projects in Krakow, Wroclaw, and Bydgoszcz. Projects will finance institutional strengthening and investments for the rehabilitation and expansion of water supply and wastewater systems for the municipal water and wastewater utilities. This will include: upgrading and optimization of water treatment plants; construction of distribution mains and programs for water network rehabilitation and improvement; construction of sewage collectors; and programs for sewer network rehabilitation and improvements combined with technical assistance for institutional improvement and engineering services. Implementing agency contacts: in Krakow: Mr. Wojciech Studnicki, Director, MPWiK Krakow, ul. Senatorska 1, Krakow. Tel: (48-12) 212-011, Fax: (48-12) 214-412. In Wroclaw: Mr. Witold Sumislawski, Manager, MPWiK Wroclaw, ul. NA Grobli 14/16, 60-421 Wroclaw, Poland. Tel: (48-71) 447-121, Fax: (48-71) 446-515. In Bydgogszcz: Mr. Wojciech Pawlak, Director, MWiK Bydgoszcz, ul. Torunska 103, 86-817, Bydgoszcz, Poland. Tel: (48-52) 718-746, Fax: (48-52) 711-297.

• A USD 50 million Solid Waste Management Privatization project in Wroclaw which will improve solid waste collection and disposal services in Wroclaw through the introduction of private sector financing, and building and operation of waste management facilities. Implementing agency: City of Wroclaw, Nowy Targ 1/8, 50-141 Wroclaw; Tel: (48-71) 407-112, Fax: (48-71) 443-750. A follow up project is planned for Warsaw, to support the efforts of the city to implement a comprehensive and integrated solid waste management program.

Project Preparation Committee

The role of the PPC is to ensure that the submitted project matches certain business and formal criteria, and then to match the project with interested funders. As of February 1997, the projects listed in Table 4.15 were planned or under implementation in Poland.

Major Sources of Information on Business Opportunities

Survey Findings

Respondents from the "business unit¹" category mentioned the following sources of information on environmental business opportunities:

• Personal contacts and discussions with others in the field;
• Personal contacts with potential clients (industrial plants, municipalities);
• Annual environmental reports prepared by each of the 49 Voivodships (see below for a detailed discussion);
• Bulletin on Public Tendering, published by the Public Tendering Office. (Aaccording to Polish regulations, if a project involves financing from public sources, it must be announced in the Bulletin; see following sections for more details.)

An important source for technical information in Poland are annual environmental fairs. Table 4.17 summarizes the events listed by respondents; figures in brackets represent the number of respondents indicating the fair.

Supplementary Information

Based on the 1995 survey, the main business and environmental publications read by Polish environmental professionals included those listed in Table 4.19.

Finally, the role of environmental and trade associations in Poland is quite limited, as shown in Table 4.20.

Annual Regional Environmental Reports

• description of key environmental issues in the province;
• current monitoring data;
• presentation of completed projects or projects under implementation;
• planned short-term and long-term environmental protection projects (including all environmental categories: water and wastewater projects, air pollution control, etc.);
• other information relevant to the region.

The voivodships' annual reports are prepared at the beginning of each year. The most significant environmental protection projects, collected from reports which were available at the time of the survey, are presented in Table 4.22. Additionally, investments reports from nine selected voivodships are presented in Section 4.9.

Public Procurement Act

In 1995, expenditures regulated under the Act on Public Procurement exceeded the equivalent of USD 4 billion. The Act on Public Procurement is intended to enable investors to solicit and select the "best offer" when they spend public money on goods, services and construction. The act was enacted in 1994 and amended during mid-1995.

The Act creates a uniform public procurement system and introduces a precisely described legal framework for competition among entities pursuing public contracts. The Act mandates fair, equal treatment, full open competition, and, clear, precise disclosure of information. It prescribes detailed record-keeping and written documents, and mandates firm, binding offers and contracts. The Act creates a central information source, the Office of Public Procurement and establishes a national publication, the bulletin on public tendering, for the announcement of procurement opportunities and for the dissemination other procurement information.

Specifically, the Act requires the formal announcement of procurement opportunities in the bulletin, and prescribes specific requirements for tender documents to ensure equal access to information about each investment. Tender documents must disclose the essential specifications of the purchase, the rules of the procurement proceeding and the terms and conditions of the proposed contract. Offers must be opened and announced at the same time, in the presence of the bidders. Records of the procurement proceedings must be maintained and disclosed (with few exceptions).

The Act requires the disclosure to all interested competitors of communications between the procuring entity and any competitor and disclosure of the procuring entity's response to requests for clarification of the procurement documents. Equal access to records of the proceeding is also guaranteed. The Act also creates an enforcement mechanism. The protest and appeal process provides competitors procedural recourse to contest the conduct of a procurement proceeding and redress harm resulting from errors or unfair treatment

In its intent, the Act encourages full and open competition. Unlimited tendering, a procedure open to all potential competitors, is declared the preferred process. Other procedures may be used only in limited circumstances and only with the approval of the Chairman of the Office of Public Procurement if the procurement is valued over 200,000 ECU. Conditions for using Limited Tendering, Two-stage Tendering, Negotiations-with-Retaining-Competition, Request-for-Quotations and Single-Source procedures are defined in the Act. Specific relevant excerpts include:

Art. 15
In public procurements valued less than 20,000 ECU and in public procurements financed with less than 20,000 ECU from public funds, unlimited tendering procedures are not obligatory and the following requirements of this Act shall not apply: the requirements related to the publication of announcements in the Bulletin on Public Tenders, written procedures, official records of proceedings, specification of essential provision of the procurement, time periods and deadlines, tender security (wadium), and protests and appeals.
If the amount of the procurement exceeds 200,000 ECU, the selection of a procurement procedure other than unlimited tendering requires approval by the Chairman of the Office.

Art. 18
Domestic as well as foreign suppliers and contractors shall be able to participate in procurement proceedings on an equal basis according to the provisions of this Act.
If the value of the procurement does not exceed the amount referenced in Art. 15, paragraph 1, the procuring entity may limit participation in a procurement proceeding solely to domestic suppliers or contractors, and foreign suppliers or contractors that have a branch or representative office in Poland.
If the subject matter of the procurement is comprised of services or construction on the territory of Poland, the procuring entity may request that the entire work covered by the procurement be performed with domestic entities, raw materials and products.
When applying national preferences in a procurement proceeding, the procuring entity shall inform the suppliers and contractors about the national preference when starting the procurement procedure. The declaration regarding the national preference cannot be changed thereafter. (....)

Note that 1 ECU = 1.12 USD, as of December 1997. Further information, including copies of the Bulletin of Public Procurement, are available via the Internet at the following address: http://www.urm.gov.pl/uzp/iuzpa.html

The List of 80

Currently, the List of 80 includes some 70 companies. About half of the listed companies do not comply with air emission regulations. In 36 plants, excessive emissions result from energy generation, while in 42 plants they are caused by production processes. In all the plants exceeding air emission levels as a result of power and energy generation, control of SO₂ and particulates emissions is the major problem. In the technological process-related problems, specific issues vary from plant to plant.

Thirty-six plants discharge excessive pollution loads into wastewater. Two specific problem areas are the discharge of saline waters from mining activities, and excessive water consumption for production processes.

In 53 plants, waste management violations have been identified, mainly related to improper waste storage sites (past and present), excessive waste generation, and the lack of proper waste treatment. The major problem with storage sites is leachate draining to surrounding soil. Another significant issue is the low degree of high-volume waste utilization, i.e. waste reuse.

Finally, nine plants exceeded allowable noise levels.

The four major industrial branches represented on the List of 80, and critical problems within each sector are presented below.

• Chemical industry (about 20 plants) - gaseous emissions (fluorine compounds, H₂S, NO_x, ammonia, PVC), waste management (hazardous waste, phosphogypsum, improper incineration), wastewater
• Power and heat generation plants (12 plants) - air emissions of particulates, SO₂ and NO_x
• Metal smelters (5 plants) - waste storage, gas and particulate emissions
• Cement industry (4 plants) - particulate emissions from rotary kilns.

The List of 80 is regularly updated, with some companies removed from the list, while others are added, based on the criteria specified in a May '94 regulation. In general, companies on the list are mainly large industrial plants, which are forced to invest significant amounts of money into improving their environmental performance, and thus can be a likely large-scale environmental technology buyer. The latest (as of mid-1996) List of 80 is included in Section 4.10.

Regional environmental inspectorates (WIOS) also maintain their own lists of major polluters in the region. Currently, there are about 800 companies listed in voivodship lists.

Sources of Information on Available Environmental Technologies

The common sources listed and discussed by the respondents were:

• personal contacts and discussions
• brochures and leaflets distributed at trade shows
• catalogues and information books purchased during the shows, fairs and conferences
• office visits made by manufacturer's representatives
• design bureaus offering technical information

Two respondents mentioned voivodship authorities and environmental funds as assisting with technology information. Only one respondent indicated consulting companies as a potential source, which shows the limited degree of confidence in consulting services in Poland. Also, only one respondent mentioned an R&D institution specializing in his sector as a potential source of information.

It should be noted that, in Poland, there are no effective commercial and professional associations which in many countries can be a cost-effective source of information on available environmental technologies. Not a single respondent listed trade or professional associations, or a local or national chamber of commerce. To the best knowledge of the researcher, neither an "Annual Buyers Guide" nor an equivalent of the US "Thomas Register" are published in Poland.

As mentioned in the previous section, environmental trade fairs and professional conferences play a key role in the dissemination of information on the availability of environmental technologies. A comprehensive list of environment-related fairs planned for 1997 is provided in Table 4.23.

POLEKO, the largest fair for pollution control technologies in Poland (and in the CEE region) is held in Poznan every November. The Fair, with some 570 exhibitors in 1996, presents the full range of environmental technologies. Representatives of major national organizations (e.g. the Ministry of Environment, the National Environmental Protection Fund, Ekofundusz, Bank for Environmental Protection) also participate. Finally, a number of environment-related conferences and seminars are also held during the Poleko fair.

WOD-KAN Fair in Bydgoszcz (held annually in April/May) focuses on technologies and materials used in sewerage systems. ECOENERGIA is the major fair focusing on the power generation sector. SALMED is the main commercial event dealing with health & safety issues. Finally, Poznan International Fair (MTP, Miedzynarodowe Targi Poznanskie) is the largest annual international trade event in Poland. Even though its main focus is the engineering industry, and power, transport, and construction sectors (not specifically the environment), given its significance, the Fair was included in the table. Contacts to organizers of the above listed fairs are provided in Table 4.24.

Useful Contacts