WASSER BERLIN 2006 - A concentration of international expertise

Plans for large investments

According to the water management, waste water and waste disposal federation (DWA), in the short to mid-term around 20 per cent of Germany’s public sewers are in need of rehabilitation. As part of regular maintenance approximately 250,000 kilometres of sewers are to be replaced. In 2003 the cost of renovating public sewage systems amounted to 1.6 billion euros. According to a 2004 survey by the DWA, a total of 50 to 55 billion euros needs to be spent on rehabilitating Germany’s public sewers alone.

The new member states in the European Union are also planning to spend large amounts on their infrastructure. According to the Magdeburg-based International Environment and Research Dialogue Centre (IDCED) around 8 billion euros will be needed in Poland over the next 10 to 15 years, most of it for new networks.
For 98 per cent of the population of Bulgaria, a candidate for EU accession in 2007, drinking water comes from public water supplies. However, losses of up to 57 per cent due to decaying networks are a cause of serious shortages. Bulgarian waste water disposal systems are also in very bad condition. In 2003 only 67 per cent of households were connected to public sewers and only 40 per cent to waste water treatment facilities. According to the IDCED one fifth of the sewage system is in urgent need of renewal.

In Romania, another EU member in spe, a similar situation exists. Whereas drinking water in 68 per cent of the country’s households is from local networks, only 52 per cent are connected to public sewers. Spending required is estimated at ten billion euros. The European Commission has concluded that for the combined nations of Central and Eastern Europe an outlay totalling 152 billion euros is required to implement waste water guidelines alone.

5th International Pipeline Construction Symposium

On 5 and 6 April 2006 the 5th International Pipeline Construction Symposium in Berlin will focus on issues concerning the future maintenance of networks in a liberalised European market. The practical experience of European utility companies will contribute to assessing the technical and economic opportunities and limits of maintaining such networks.

Taking a look at construction sites

5 April is "Construction Site Day", with visitors invited to ongoing construction in urban Berlin. Methods demonstrated at over 20 sites worked on by the local water supplier Berliner Wasserbetriebe will include trenchless pipe substitution, no-dig solutions for new drinking water pipes and service laterals, installation of two new soil filters and trenchless repairs. The focus will also be on renewal and rehabilitation, slip lining, short lining and injection methods for rehabilitating sewers, and the use of cutter and filler robots inside networks.

Visitors will be able to observe microtunnelling, a trenchless method of constructing sewers, using various pipe diameters and materials, as well as channel line methods.

PE  lining, a method of inserting new pipes into existing ones, will be demonstrated at a construction site of the Berlin gas supplier GASAG AG.

Held at the same time as the "Construction Site Day", there will once again be a "Network Managers’ Day" for managers of waste water treatment plants, sewage networks, water works, and managers of numerous water suppliers and waste water disposal companies.

Press contact:

Astrid Ehring
Press Officer
Messe Berlin GmbH
Messedamm 22
D-14055 Berlin
Tel.:+49 30 3038 2275
Fax:+49 30 3038 2141
ehring@messe-berlin.de

Wolf-Dietrich Groß
cmi Kommunikation und Medien GmbH
Zillestr. 105 A
D-10585 Berlin
Tel.:+49 30 327 80 80
Fax:+49 33 20 66 25 35
cmi@cmi-berlin.de
www.cmi-berlin.de

For additional details:

www.wasser-berlin.de
www.messe-berlin.de