New legislative requirements for special water use

New legislative requirements for special water use

The last changes which insert significant corrections into general document that establishes rules of special water use – the Water Code, at first change order of obtaining permissions for special water use.

4^th of June 2017 go into effect a law «On modifications for certain legislative acts of Ukraine, which regulate relationships related with obtaining documents of permissible character in regard to special water use». This normative document modifies Water Code of Ukraine.

Specialists of MCL, LLC reviewed and analyzed main changes which are aimed to simplify obtaining of permissible documents for enterprises:

1. New law deprives jurisdiction to issue permissions for special water use regional, Kyiv and Sevastopol regional councils and State administrations. From now, Permission for special water use is used by the territorial bodies of central authority of executive power that performs state policy in the sphere of water industry. For example, Dniprovske basin management of water resources will issue permissions for special water use for enterprises which performs activity in Kyiv and Kyiv region.
2. From now, the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine won`t establish order of approval normative maximum permissible discharge (MPD) of pollutant substances into water objects, but only will establish order of their development.
3. New law changes the definition «secondary water users (consumers)». According to the last changes: secondary water users (entrepreneurs) which don’t have their own water abstraction constructions and use constructions of other enterprises for water supply and/or water discharge b right of agreement of water supply (water discharge), can conduct waste water discharge into water objects only in terms of permissions for special water use.
4. There are changes in types of activities called «special water use». From now, water abstraction and/or use in a volume of 5 cubic meters per day, except water that used for production (as an ingredient) beverage foods and packed potable water is not special water use, so is not required permission for special water use.

As you can see, new law simplifies obtaining permission for special water use, however, last order of obtaining permission for special water use prescribed obtaining permission directly at authorities of regional and local administrations, which couldn’t issue permission for special water use without conclusion of bodies of executive power which realize policy in the sphere of water industry development. Now, mentioned below bodies will independently issue permissions for special water use which leads for reducing terms for review documents. It is not a secret that the scheme of reviewing documents which is used even today is imperfect. Because if there are remarks of content or preparation of documents for obtaining permission for special water use by one of bodies, involved in process of issue permission for special water use, these remarks must be pass through 2-3 different authorities. As a result, it negatively reflects on terms of obtaining permissions for enterprises which don’t have right to water use without corresponded permission.

In addition, new changes regulate limiting list of documents required for obtaining permission for special water use. Previous version of Water Code didn’t establish such list at all. Different local bodies of executive power established at its discretion list of documents which is necessary to provide for obtaining permission for special water use. Often, this list was consisted of different forms of intercession for obtaining permission for special water use. Form of intercession was developed in soviet time and had no official translation into Ukrainian, so local bodies of executive power often interpreted requirements in their own way.