Environment-friendly fund

The Provincial Fund of Environment Protection and Water Management in Poznań is planning to allocate over PLN 125 million in the form of loans, subsidies, supplementary charges to preferential bank credits and investments with a view to the improvement of the condition of the environment in the Wielkopolska Province.

Over 900 motions have been filed asking the Fund for subsidies. This year a sum exceeding PLN 64 million is to be allocated to modernisation, construction and extension of water treatment plants or sanitary sewage systems in Skorzęcin, Licheń, Kozimin Wielkopolski, Rogoźno, Rawicz, Oborniki and others. Furthermore, over 300 undertakings will be subsidised including primarily those connected with the overhaul of coal-operated boiler houses with a view to reducing the emission of toxic substances and improving the state of the atmosphere. Thirty eight further investments concern waste management and are connected with the construction, extension or modernisation of landfill sites. The largest new enterprise is the construction of the "Orli Staw" Municipal Waste Recycling and Neutralising Plant in Nowe Prazuchy in the Kalisz region. Upon its completion the plant is expected to solve the problem of the management of approximately 70.000 tonnes of waste a year.

Investments constitute the major field of assistance provided by the Fund. Some money, however, is also allocated to ecological education, environmental protection, monitoring of the state of the environment as well as the development and functioning of environment inspection systems. In the past year this field of activity covered 130 tasks, including the organisation of competitions, conferences, publications and the functioning of non-governmental ecological organisations.

With Przemysław Gonera as a chairman, the Provincial Fund of Environment Protection and Water Management in Poznań has been in operation in its present shape, covering the whole Wielkopolska, for a year. Its functioning has been supplemented by the Ecofund, which deals with the conversion of Polish debts into pro-ecological investments, other funds and institutions. The major source of income are fees for the use of the environment. Subsidies cannot exceed 50 percent of investment costs. Considering applications the Fund is guided by priorities which are set annually by the Supervisory Board headed by Dominik Ludwiczak.

Beata Zagrodzka-Blok