Latvia is one of the water-richest countries in Europe. We can be proud of 2,256 lakes and about 12,500 rivers, as well as the almost 500 km long coastline of the Baltic Sea and its beaches. However, there are concerns about the quality of water management. According to the latest assessments, the ecological quality of water in Latvia is lower than the average in the European Union. There are also problems in providing access to public waters for the population, the safety and facilities of bathing areas, and issues affecting fishing and economic activity on or off the coast. Therefore, the State Audit Office performed an audit in 12 local and regional governments of Latvia to find out how local and regional governments take care of this unique, natural resource - the public waters entrusted to their management.
Water management should be included in municipal action plans
To ensure sustainable water management and its preservation for future generations, its accessibility to the population and the promotion of economic development, one must balance environmental, recreational, and economic operation aspects.
In terms of environmental sustainability, the legal framework sets requirements for protecting water bodies at risk to prevent the deterioration of surface and groundwater quality in Latvia. Improving water quality requires identification and assessment of the situation in the country as whole and determining directions of action and tasks. The audit has found that local and regional governments identify water bodies at risk and act to improve the situation; however, those actions are mostly not considered systematic. The amount of activities performed by local and regional governments in connection with the improvement of water quality is relatively small compared to other activities performed by local and regional governments in areas not related to public waters.
There should be positive examples mentioned as well. Those include Carnikava Regional Government, whose sustainable development strategy highlights topical issues related to the use, protection, and management of surface and groundwater: wastewater discharge into the Baltic Sea, the unsatisfactory technical condition of land reclamation systems, spring floods, and bank erosion on the banks of the Gauja River. Positive examples are also in Liepaja, Jurmala, and Engure Region. However, Latvian local and regional governments do not pay significant importance to those issues in general despite the goals set at the national level for the preservation and protection of natural resources.
The availability of public waters for recreation in local and regional governments is also often of low priority. Projects aimed at providing quality and safe recreation often do not result from municipal planning documents and a clear vision of the goals that a local or regional government intends to achieve in this area but from the success of attracting funding for individual projects.
For the process to be considered purposeful and in line with the population’s interests, local and regional governments should listen to the community’s opinion and include it in municipal development plans when setting goals, resources, deliverables, criteria for project selection and other activities.
Yet, even when public surveys and public consultations occur in local and regional governments, their proposals are seldom reflected in development plans in practice as specific goals and tasks with a certain priority. The population surveys prove that the community’s assessment of the activities performed by local and regional governments concerning the environment, landscaping, recreation, and tourism opportunities is low, for example, in the population survey in the Rezekne Region.
Many shortcomings in management
The auditors identified significant deficiencies in several aspects of management related to the planning of management tasks and work, monitoring work performance, and reporting on progress.
When municipal institutions manage public waters, mainly rural district boards, work plans and reports on the progress are not drafted. Although the responsible personnel carry out inspections of public waters in nature, they do not document it. At the same time, one can outline an excellent example. For example, employees of the Municipal Department of Liepaja City Municipality survey public waters and the adjacent territory in nature regularly and inform about the cleanliness of the territory and the physical condition of the installed infrastructure at planning meetings.
Assessing the contractual performance in the context of transferring public water management to another entity, one has established that local and regional governments do not monitor the quality of work performed and the rights transferred sufficiently, including gaining income from distribution of angling, crayfish catching, and underwater hunting licenses. The audit has found that the reports are submitted on the use of the allocated funding mainly, but not on the extent and quality of the work performed. According to the auditors’ estimate, it resulted in at least 267,428 euros of revenue not generated from licensed angling, crayfish catching, and underwater hunting in the local and regional governments.
The information about recreational opportunities is lacking
There are 57 official places for swimming in Latvia, including 24 places in the local and regional governments included in the audit sample. At the same time, recreational opportunities for residents are also available in other - unofficial places for swimming. The manager of the place for swimming is responsible for the establishment and maintenance of the bathing site, compliance with safety and hygiene requirements, and the placement of informative signs and other information related to the place for swimming.
Although places for swimming are properly managed, improved and hygienic due to active municipal activities, information on the accessibility, availability and facilities of public water bodies, beaches, official and unofficial places for swimming is not available to the general public.
In general, one can find information on tourism opportunities in the territory of the respective local or regional government on the websites of local and regional governments; however, a half or 50% of the websites of local and regional governments included in the audit sample do not provide information on the extent of tourism facilities and access opportunities. No information on recreational opportunities for disabled people is also available on any municipal website.
Neither the municipal websites nor physical signs provide specific access opportunities to licensed angling grounds, as well as opportunities for boat delivery and car parking, which could cause difficulties for anglers, crayfishers, and underwater hunters.
Security is only on paper currently
Society as a whole has become more active, so many people prefer full-fledged recreation in nature increasingly, including near and in water. For organising the flow of holidaymakers and ensuring safety on and off the waters, local and regional governments have set restrictions on the use of sailing and floating craft in the public waters within their administrative territories. However, there are no adequate monitoring measures for the use of water bodies provided in practice, as the audit shows that only one local government included in the audit sample plan them.
Increasingly frequent violations evidence the significance of safety and order supervision such as drunk driving boats and watercraft or without a driving license, thus endangering others.
Incomplete supervision is also evidenced by the fact that municipal institutions are often late in engaging in measures to control and ensure the legality of the use of public water areas because they do not inspect or supervise the actions of individuals. It requires the use of municipal resources to eliminate the consequences of illegal actions, such as construction on and near the water.
Unjustified service fee
Despite local and regional governments also providing paid services related to the use of public waters, one has detected discrepancies even in this regard. Several of them have not developed a methodology for determining the service price, or this methodology is not followed. There is also no separate accounting for revenue and expenditure and no cost calculations made to determine the charges for the service provided accurately and reasonably. In addition, despite the constant increase in costs, the service fee is not updated for years in many cases.
A negative example is a situation in Pavilosta, where, setting an unreasonable fee, according to the auditors’ estimate, no revenue has been gained from berth rental services for yachts in the Pavilosta Yacht Marina of at least 5,097 euros. In total, the four small ports in the sample may not have received at least 20,388 euros in revenue for services provided by yacht marinas.
To support local and regional governments in arranging the area of public water management from the aspect of environment, accessibility, and economic activity, the State Audit Office has provided several recommendations to the local and regional governments included in the audit. However, being aware that similar problems exist in other local and regional governments of Latvia, a self-assessment questionnaire and methodological materials have been elaborated, which are available to any local or regional government and interested parties. One also plans a workshop on the arrangement of public water in the municipal training centre.
Additional information