Denis Tahiri
During the last 20 years, the hillsides with olive trees on the outskirts of the city of Saranda, were transformed little by little into construction areas, where today, more than 30 apartments, make up a small neighborhood of private houses.
"At the very beginning, we also made the electricity network within the neighborhood ourselves. The first 10 houses, then whoever came paid a part which was shared with those first 10 houses, then the 12th and the same thing was shared among the first 11". says one of the residents of this neighborhood. The 27-year-old says that as far as he can remember, the only investment made by the local government in this area is the road. "Even that in half, there were funds to take it to the end of the neighborhood, they told us". he says. But when asked about dirty water, the answer is very quick. "Each spia has its own septic tank where it accumulates".
But the reality is that this small neighborhood is not the only one in Albania where the sewerage of dirty water and its treatment is missing. Such areas, even many times larger, can be found near every Albanian city.
For ERRU, the main problem continues to remain in the Rural Area, in which there is generally no sewage network and wastewater discharges are carried out individually with septic tanks, "but which leave much to be desired in terms of compliance with the technical standards of their implementation".
Polluted waters, ERRU: Challenge for the sector
For the year 2023, from the official reports of 17 UK companies for the report of the Water Regulatory Entity, it is reported that in total, the coverage of sewage in the whole country is at the level of 54.8%.
"Again, it remains far from the required level", ERRU says in its report.
For the Water Regulatory Authority, the coverage with the Wastewater Sewerage service but also the Wastewater Treatment Facilities, in the framework of the country's entry into the European Union - "It remains a challenge for the UK sector". In this report, an amount calculated by the World Bank of 2.5 billion Euros, necessary to solve this problem, is determined.
The performance of 17 UK companies for the year 2023 in terms of polluted water, is a situation which leaves much to be desired. Out of 17 companies, only two of them are above the level of good performance, UK Tirana with 93% and UK Kamëz with 78%, while the other 15 companies have suffered a decline in their indicators.
"Analyzing the indicator at the level of the regional society reflects the indicator, including rural areas, brings a deterioration of this indicator, which for the larger society before regionalization was at higher levels". says ERRU in its report.
But what stands out is the fact that currently in the sector there are also companies that do not manage to cover with this service even 30% of the city they cover, such as Sh.R.UK Kukës with 25.3%, Lushnja with 24.3% and Dibra with 22.5%.
On the other hand, many of these companies are not even licensed to treat Polluted Water. According to ERRU, this service is provided only by 5 regional companies. "Durrës, Korçë, Pogradec, Shkodër (ITUN Velipojë + ITUN Shirokë) and Lezhë, which are licensed by ERRU to provide these Services".
Experts: The state has failed and is failing
One of the factors that have had the greatest impact on the infrastructure of polluted water but also on other elements of the infrastructure, according to the experts, have been the informational constructions.
"The first construction years made sense, it is normal for the private initiative to move faster than the state, my concern is that we are in the 4th decade of transition and we are making the mistakes of that time", says urban planner Gentian Kaprata, who adds that if in the 2000s there were about 20 thousand informal constructions, currently we have 600 thousand of them. "It means that not only then, but also now we have not understood what is happening", he adds.
Even the urban planner Doriana Musaj says that during the years of political and economic transition, the society suffered radical changes, from the lifestyle to its conditions and quality. But in this rapid and rapid change of a society that is constantly moving, urbanism was more of a formal regulator than a genuine planning of how we would develop.
"The constructions were done ahead of the plans and often the plans were outdated by not being implemented. This construction, initially for housing purposes and then for economic gain, became unplanned and not controlled by the authorities. she says, adding that the market has moved much faster than the state, and has preceded a development which, when uncontrolled, has consequences in the management of the commons, which in this case is the urban support infrastructure.
For expert Kaprata, Albanian cities are divided into two groups, the first where the 3-4 main cities of the country are located, which are overpopulated with a very high intensity of construction and often with over-extension, and the other group of cities which are overwhelmingly, underpopulated very low intensity and small scope.
"The movements from the northern and southern regions towards the center have led to the formation of these cities with extremely different dimensions." he says, emphasizing that overpopulated cities theoretically have the capital to invest in solving this problem. "They have more, but they don't have where - say the people - since the densification of the city has occupied those corridors that would serve as infrastructure". says Mr. Kaprata, while adding that in other cities, which have inherited from the communist system, a network that was functional cannot be maintained. "The population has left, the businesses are gone, so the place is in the case of small towns, there is a possibility of the municipality, but I don't know what. For these reasons, it is at the level of impossible or very difficult to make a sewage network", he concludes.
On the other hand, urban planning experts say that water treatment and support infrastructure has not been a priority of urban policies.
"Until now, water treatment and the addition of supporting infrastructure to the city has not been a priority of urban policies", says Mrs. Musaj, citing Tirana as an example where the construction stock continues to grow by several million square meters and yet we do not see serious investments to respond to this megacity that is being built. "Investments in public Services by the government are completely absent. Tirana has serious public service problems, starting from drinking water, to urban transport, to emergency Services, to then deal with the sector of sewage and rainwater. she says, adding that the city has more than 80% of its surface blocked, unable to absorb the surface rainwater which in heavy rains mixes with the black water and overturns the capital in a few minutes.
On the other hand, Gentian Kaprata says that the Albanian capital will need at least 20-25 years to solve this problem, but 20 years when there is a concrete plan.
"Without the plan, we don't know where the residents are, how many residents there are, these are the bases on which the network is designed and built. We must once and for all resolve the issue of territorial planning and say that this is the Tirana of 2050, the people will be like this, the democracy will be like this, the population will be distributed like this, and only then by doing this will we have the money". he concludes.
And at a time when this service is offered to only 54.8% of the population, where 15 UK companies do not even manage to capture the indicator of good performance for this service, this problem seems to accompany the country for a long time, affecting also in specific sectors of the economy.
