The Helsinki Commission says it has approved the deletion of the five remaining municipal HELCOM Hot Spots (main pollution sites) in Poland. These hot spots included the municipal wastewater treatment plants in Katowice, Gliwice, Bytom, Lodz and Wrocław.
The Helsinki Commission has approved the deletion of the five remaining municipal HELCOM Hot Spots (main pollution sites) in Poland. These hot spots included the municipal wastewater treatment plants in Katowice, Gliwice, Bytom, Łódź and Wrocław.
On March 28, 2025, the Helsinki Commission confirmed the deletion of these sites from the list after reviewing and approving a report submitted by the State Water Holding Polish Waters.
Poland has made significant progress in municipal wastewater treatment, particularly through the implementation of the National Programme for Municipal Wastewater Treatment. The previous deletion of Polish hot spots took place in 2015, when the modernization of wastewater treatment plants in Warsaw, Poznań and Kraków were completed.
“We are very gratified by this Polish success story, which testifies to the overall success of the work on hot spots under the Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action Programme (JCP), initiated in 1992,” notes HELCOM Executive Secretary Rüdiger Strempel.
The 2021 Baltic Sea Action Plan saw the countries around the Baltic Sea renew their commitment to eliminating the remaining hot spots identified under the JCP (Action HT23).