Regulation of the permissible discharges of pollutants into water bodies established by the federal legislation and feasible directions of its improvement

Summary

The analysis of the legal support for the regulation of permissible discharges of pollutants into water bodies has been conducted together with the mechanism of payment for the negative impact on water bodies. Inconsistency was revealed in the approach to regulating permissible discharges of pollutants and charging the objects of I – III categories of the negative environmental impact. Also, legal uncertainty was identified in the development and approval of methods and techniques of accounting for the natural background in regulating permissible discharges, which entailed the current problems of establishing regulations for permissible discharges for water users. Approaches to improving the environmental legislation to address related issues are described. There is a need to harmonize the requirements for establishing standards on permissible discharges for various categories of objects of negative environmental impact in terms of a more sound definition of the lists of pollutants subject to regulation, as well as the compliance of more stringent requirements with more hazardous categories of objects. To eliminate economically and technically inaccessible requirements to the quality of effluents discharged, a legislative justification of the limiting requirements to the water quality in receiving water bodies and effluent quality is proposed.

Key words

standards for permissible discharges , provisionally permitted discharges , objects of negative environmental impact