DRINKING WATER COMMITTEE WASTEWATER COMMITTEE in cooperation with CROATIAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. under the auspices of

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1 CROATIAN WATER AND WASTEWATER ASSOCIATION DRINKING WATER COMMITTEE WASTEWATER COMMITTEE in cooperation with CROATIAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS under the auspices of CROATIAN MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE and CROATIAN WATERS INSTITUTION organize PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS CONFERENCE WITH INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPATION and Trade Fair CURRENT ISSUE IN WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE First Announcement and a Call of Papers October 2014 Hotel CROATIA Cavtat

2 Ladies and Gentlemen, We have the honour to invite you to our annual ProfessionalBusiness Conference with international participation of the Croatian Water and Wastewater Association with which we pursue an extraordinarily good cooperation. It is our intent to organize the annual conference and gather experts from the water industry in the region and beyond this time again there will be representatives from many European countries. The conference will be held from October 2014 in Cavtat. Since this conference covers a truly wide range of subjects, we kept our traditional title: CURRENT ISSUES IN WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE In recent years we have seen a growing interest in our ProfessionalBusiness Conference it grew in the scope of content and the number of participants. From a national event a meeting of Croatian specialists for water and wastewater, in only a couple of years it evolved into an event of veritable international importance, connecting experts and business people from more than 25 countries. As the volume of the Conference grows we receive more and more papers, technical articles and presentations and must plan special events, too. We are pleased to notice that we also have a constantly growing number of manufacturers and suppliers of a wide range of products and services in the field of water supply and wastewater disposal. This means a requirement for the organizers to provide for an adequate exhibition space. In accordance with the above mentioned, this year's conference will be held in the Croatia Hotel in Cavtat a hotel with the necessary comfort that allows highquality implementation of all planned activities in one place. The last year in Croatia was largely marked by its accession into the EU, which has significantly influenced the operation of the water and wastewater sector. These extensive measures of adjustment and alignment with the EU requirements were already implemented in the preaccession phase and intensified after the accession. Many of these processes have not been completed, and some are about to begin. Thus, this moment in time is characterized by a wide range of activities implemented across the country. Since a considerable number of laws and subordinate regulations have been adopted or they are in the preparation phase, their influence on water management is already noticeable starting with organizational changes to the preparation and use of sophisticated processes in the implementation of EU projects. Accordingly, a comprehensive reform of the public utilities sector in the field of water supply and sewage is being prepared, which introduces a number of changes, compared to the previous organization and operations, both in terms of the concentration of existing companies in this sector, as well as in relation to activities which can be offered by such companies, all in the context of the current practice. In the course of the rapprochement of the Croatian water supply policy to EU standards, a number of large projects in the field of water supply and waste water disposal are in the preparation and implementation phase. The ultimate goal is to improve the current situation or to reconstruct the existing buildings and plants, to build new water and wastewater systems and wastewater treatment plants; hence the number of devices connected to the public water supply and sewage customers should be increased, which also should have a positive effect on the standard of living of the population. The protection of ground and surface waters and the environment in general will not be forgotten. It is expected that this year's the meeting of experts will mostly deal with similar problems, but other issues are expected to be presented, too, related with various aspects of water management. The following key issues are planned for this year's ProfessionalBusiness Conference, and the classification of papers and the structure of the Conference itself will be planned accordingly: 1. New Legislation and its Application in Practice According to the Water Act, all water suppliers must be organized as public institutions or companies, offering only the activities of drinking water supply and/or sewage and/or wastewater treatment. The founder and owner of these water supply companies can only be the branches of local government, i.e. municipalities and cities. Companies in the areas of water supply, sewage and waste water treatment had to exclude all other services from their activities until the end of 2013, so that only the core business related to the water utilities remains. At the time when we write this information, the ordinance on the establishment of the service areas has still not been adopted. The draft of the ordinance was made public and it generated different opinions and public criticism. It is expected that the adopted regulation is presented, together with its benefits and problems. The regional governments of the water managing companies also bring a variety of dilemmas and problems with it. From the technical point of view, sewage and wastewater treatment systems are completely separate technical units of the local governments. The price of water services is a particular problem, because the individual units are tied by contracts into longterm programs, and in some cases the local governments have taken upon themselves the loan obligations. The water supply facilities must meet the rules on the hygienic and technical terms and conditions, which is a new obligation for them. New legislation and practical examples shall be presented at our Conference and answers will be given to certain questions that are still not defined.

3 2. The measurement of abstracted and delivered quantities of drinking water, billing, cost and price structure of the water services According to the law on financing the water management, from 1 January 2015, the basis for the calculation of water use is the amount of water abstracted in m3. According to the article 23 of the same law, the public water suppliers are required to pay this fee, that is, the water charges. Once the Articles 23 and 24 come into force, this will have a great effect on the water prices, which will rise. The Croatian Government prescribes the ceiling of water use charges in one of its regulations, which allows the correction coefficients to be determined, with which the amount of taxes may be reduced, as well as the coefficient of the technical water loss in public water supply systems. So, this is how the water use charge becomes from 1 January 2015 a matter of expense of the public water supplier, which will be covered by the price of water services on which the VAT is calculated. A problem which remains is the financial sources for the rehabilitation of water supply facilities. The measuring of the abstracted and delivered water quantities, the choice of the highquality flow meters, setting the actual state of the water supply systems and of the real water losses are becoming not only technical, but also economic categories in the operation of the water suppliers. GIS, the water loss management and telemetric control become the indispensable part of the management tasks in the public water supply all with the goal to reduce costs. The topic is very broad and covers the technical and economic aspects of the problem. 3. Practical Examples and Experiences Related to the Application of EU Funds This topic includes practical examples and experiences related to investment projects for municipal infrastructure, financed from EU funds. Projects will be accepted that are in the implementation, tendering or approval phase. It would be especially useful to analyze these documents with respect to their comprehensiveness, to which extent they are applicable, whether they really address the issues and are harmonized with the rules and standards in Croatia and the EU (feasibility studies, costbenefit analysis, application studies, projects, technical documentations, tender documents, ownership, etc.). 4. Wastewater Treatment Plants for to PE According to the implementation plan for water and utility directives, the Republic of Croatia has to meet the obligations it has taken from the Directive for waste water treatment (91/271/EEC) and the Directive on the quality of water for human consumption (1998/83/EC). The deadline for the construction of sewage treatment plants greater than 2,000 PE is set for The sewage treatment plants larger than 15,000 PE are already and mostly defined. Both the water utilities, as well as the builders of the treatment plants of size 2,000 to 15,000 PE, but also operators who are managing these systems face a fundamental issue the available wastewater treatment technology. A proper definition of capacity, technology, management and automation are all issues that must be dealt with separately. Daily new and different variations of the already known basic technical processes in water treatment are offered on the market and we have often witnessed very different ideas and processes which were favoured, as well as solutions for sludge treatment. Therefore, we expect to hear in this session presentations and lectures on concrete examples with a critical review of applicable solutions, including the problem of sludge treatment from the process of wastewater treatment. A special problem is the sewage treatment plant, fed with a variety of wastewater sources from the industry waste water which has not been treated before. The construction and operation of the treatment plant is almost always associated with huge costs. It is therefore important that such systems are designed and constructed rationally and that the costs are as much as possible minimized during construction. The same principle should be applied to the maintenance costs by assuring additional processes and activities in order to treat the sludge completely and to produce energy for the plant's own purposes. In this way, a lot of money will be saved and the environment will not be not uselessly polluted. Generating energy from sewage sludge or recycling of sewage water as technological water are interesting topics, too. We hope that the abovementioned topic proposals will attract your interest; and they shall in no way be understood as limiting, but rather as a guide it is possible to introduce issues from other current fields of water supply and waste water disposal, which can also be presented to a certain degree at this meeting. We share the opinion that the proposed topics for the Conference this year largely deal with the above listed problems and that they will provide an interesting framework to all interested authors of the technical treatises. We hereby invite you to join our Conference, present your professional contributions and thereby contribute to the further development of the introduced topics. We believe that together we can contribute to an easier and more effective adjustment to the newly established operating conditions of the water sector; truly large obligations are in front of us, based on the complete harmonization with the EU. We invite the professional services and representatives of waterutility companies, university professors, professional services of competent ministries and Croatian Waters Institution, designers, engineers, producers and distributors of equipment, institutes, inspection services, in Croatia and in Europe to present their best experiences and uptodate solutions. The Organizational Committee

4 The Board of the Association Ivan Jukić, president Laura Šuperina, vice president Štefica Mihalic, vice president Vlado Vlašić Oto Dudjak Zdravko Mulić Andrej Marochini Helena Iveković, secretary Drinking water commission Mile Beslić, chairman Nikolina Novotni Horčička Dražen Strčić Vladimir Vouk Ivan Kovačić Wastewater commission Dario Ban, chairman Marina Orel Ljubica Peraica Ljiljana Čačić Rajna Libiš Nadarević Marin Jugo Grgo Peronja Igor Vlašić For the submission of papers please fill in the enclosed registration form, which will be passed to the technical organizer the Congress Tourist Agency REVELIN. The registration form also serves as evidence for the order of the papers received, as well as for updating the data received. In order to assess the technical papers easily into the designated groups, please write the title and summary of the paper (up to 100 words), with the names, titles and addresses of authors and coauthors and send it until: 20 May 2014 (Tuesday) To the agency REVELIN: The editors and authors of the Book of Proceedings will classify the received papers and presentations and order them into groups. All accepted papers and presentations will be printed in the Book of Proceedings and will be published on the accompanying CD. Please send the complete technical papers until: To the agency ORGANIZING COMMITTEE SUBMISSION OF PAPERS 22 July 2014 (Tuesday) REVELIN:

5 (Please use the recommended applications when sending larger documents) Since the interest of our participants for active participation in the Conference is growing every year, we have provided an earlier delivery deadline for abstracts and full papers; we need this extra time to ensure a timely preparation for printing, and corresponding with authors, if necessary, for correction because we want to avoid mistakes in print. We therefore advise all potential authors to strictly abide by the deadlines given above. WRITING AND SUBMITTION OF PAPERS Papers should be written on A4 format, at a maximum of 10 pages in WINDOWS 97 or higher. The pictures should be in JPEG or TIF format in 1:1 proportion and resolution of 300 dpi, in the CMYK colour system for pictures in colour. For better visibility, we recommend the pictures and graphs to be in colour. The papers should contain: name and family names of main author with titles contact data (company or institution, address, telephone, ) names and family names of coauthors with titles contact data of coauthors (company or institution, address, telephone, ) title of the paper on Croatian and English language summary in Croatian language summary in English language introduction in Croatian language content in Croatian language conclusion As this central annual Conference with international participation becomes more and more important, and due to an increasing number of participants from abroad, along with the complete paper in Croatian language, it is necessary to send the title and summary in English language, which will be printed in the Proceedings and recorded on the CD. This should be positioned in the paper before the introduction in Croatian language. If the authors wish to submit the full paper in English language also, it will be recorded on the CD containing the papers of the Conference. The deadline for the submission of papers in English is 20 August Upon request, the Agency Revelin can arrange translations at a special, lower price. ORAL PRESENTATIONS Since the oral presentations are limited in number and time, those lectures/presentations have priority, which are dealing with the designated topics above. The authors will be informed on time by if their presentation has been listed among the oral presentations. Oral presentations should be accompanied by a POWER POINT presentation which should be sent to the Agency REVELIN by 19 September Should the presentation for any reason be changed, the newly produced version must be delivered as soon as possible to REVELIN; this is important because all the presentations will be exhibited and shown before the conference on the central computer.

6 All oral presentations will be simultaneously translated from Croatian into German and English and vice versa. All oral presentations will be simultaneously translated from Croatian into German and English and vice versa. REGISTRATION AND ACCOMODATION The intention to participate at the Conference, i.e. the registration of papers, should be sent on the attached registration form. We kindly ask the participants to fill out the form legibly, sign it/stamp and send it by , fax or mail or online at our website The registration form also serves as a contract and based on that the guest/participant will be issued an invoice for the booking of accommodation and conference registration fee. The package price includes: hotel accommodation in single or double rooms, full board, gala dinner and an allday conference tour. The hotel reservation must be confirmed with the payment no later than 22 September 2014; the booking cancellation is only possible until 14 October 2014, then the value of one night will be charged on the cancellation. Other changes in the booking are possible at the hotel, until 24 hours before the start of the Conference. An early departure is possible you need to fill out the appropriate form at the hotel reception desk, the one you were given by reception on arrival. In any other case REVELIN is forced to charge the guest/participant for the booked number of nights according to the contract, since the hotel also charges us for that amount. The reminder for the confirmation of the booking an the information of the late booking will be sent along with the Program of the nd Conference in the 2 Announcement, in the beginning of September CONFERENCE FEE The basic Conference fee is 1700 Croatian Kuna incl. VAT, or 225. The Conference fee paid after 26 September 2014 is Kuna incl. VAT, i.e According to the decision of the Organizing Committee the Conference fee is to be paid by every participant regardless of the number of days of the participation at the Conference or the number of employees from company or institution participating. The participation fee must be paid before the guest/participant arrives at the hotel for accreditation. The Conference fee includes: the right to participate at the Conference preparation and distribution of the Conference Announcements Book of Proceedings and 2 CDs Expenses of the Congress hall with a full conference equipment and technicians Welcome drink Coffee breaks Simultaneous translation from English/German into Croatian and from Croatian into English/German during the Conference Organization and realization of the Conference

7 The participation on the Professional Business Conference brings points to those who are obliged to have professional upgrading in the field construction and engineering. PAYMENT Participants from other countries make payments by bank draft to the foreign currency account of the Agency REVELIN as follows: Zagrebačka banka d.d. Paromlinska 2, Zagreb SWIFT: ZABA HR2X, Revelin d.o.o. Ičići IBAN: HR When making payments from abroad please increase the amount by 15 for the coverage of bank charges. Proof of payment should be sent in advance by fax or presented in person upon arrival at the hotel, so that we can proceed with accreditation and issue vouchers for the services. BUSINESS PRESENTATION The ProfessionalBusiness Conference will consist of the presentation of papers in the hall or Book of Proceedings and/or leasing of the exhibition space to companies for the presentation of their products and services, i.e. having business meetings or conducting promotional activities. Business persons who wish to present their products or services on this representative Conference which will have around 700 participants from about 25 countries, will have the opportunity for various forms of business presentation. Companies which will, along with the contracts on sponsorship, present themselves on the Conference, will have the opportunity to advertise themselves i.e. their company, products and services, on a separate marketing DVD which will be distributed to all the participants at the Conference. All details will be given upon the signing of the Contract on business presentation. The sponsors of the Conference shall have the status of full Conference participants, which means that they pay the regular Conference fee. Business persons who will not have a business presentation or will not sponsor the Conference in any way, but wish to participate, pay a business Conference fee in the amount of Croatian Kuna incl. VAT, i.e Any kind of business activity at the Conference should be regulated by a special contract with the Organizer and with the official accreditation. Marketing programme can be obtained in the Agency REVELIN. Preparation, organization and realization of the Conference Congress Tourist Agency d.o.o. ID C ode: HR AB OIB: HR51414 IČIĆI, Kolavići 5 tel , ; fax: revelin@ri.tcom.hr

8 PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME Wednesday, :00 20:00 Arrival, accreditation, accommodation of participants 19:00 Dinner 20:30 22:30 Welcome drink Thursday, Breakfast 08:00 Registration of participants 09:00 Opening ceremony 09:45 10:45 Introductory presentations 10:45 11:00 Presentations of the main sponsor 11:00 11:30 Coffee break 11:30 14:00 Expert and business presentations 14:15 15:30 Late brunch 16:00 18:45 BusinessEvents in the exhibition room; presentations 19:00 Dinner 20:30 Performance of the folklore ensemble»linđo«from Dubrovnik Friday, Breakfast 09:00 11:00 Expert and business presentations 11:00 11:30 Coffee break 11:30 14:30 Expert and business presentations 14:30 16:00 Late brunch 16:30 19:00 BusinessEvents in the exhibition room; presentations 20:00 Gala Dinner Saturday, Breakfast 09:00 22:00 Wholeday Conference tour Sunday, Breakfast Closing of the Conference