ABSTRACT
The Rural Code gives police powers on water to the administrative authority, and defines the limits of the property rights and obligation of maintenance. Departmental sanitary regulations consist of a set of prefectoral decrees, based on the general framework of the Code of Public Health, which allows taking into account the specific problems of each department, including water and sewage problems. A critical component of water quality management in France involves the flows of money to finance sewage treatment plants and sewer systems; only industrial activities and municipalities can build and operate treatment plants. For municipal sewage treatment, capital costs of facilities are financed through: loans and grants from the relevant basin agency; the municipal budget; and grants from regional and departmental budgets, which in turn come primarily from the national budget. Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs of facilities are obtained from: the sewage tax; the premium; and the superpremium.
