ABSTRACT
Lack of controls on point sources of pollutant discharges—primarily sewage treatment plants—has contributed to the degradation of surface water quality in Central and Eastern Europe. Neither relying on existing pollution control nor adopting the West’s best-available pollution control technology and minimum pollutant discharge policies is likely to be a feasible course of action for the region, as the environmental consequences of the former would appear to be unacceptable and the costs of the latter to be prohibitive. However, a recent case study involving the Nitra River basin in the Slovak Republic suggests that the region can realize substantial improvements in water quality at a fraction of the cost of command-and-ontrol policies used in the West by taking into account the relative contributions to pollution and pollution control costs of individual point sources and basing pollution control efforts on those contributions and costs.
