Biovac^® Wastewater Treatment Plants in the Mountain National Parks

This paper presents characteristics of the Biovac^® wastewater treatment plants operating in the mountain areas of the Polish national parks (NP): Tatrzanski NP and Babiogórski NP as well as in the West Spitsbergen NP. On the basis of the laboratory tests performed on raw sewage and the final effluent the efficiency of the wastewater treatment plants was evaluated. It was found that high COD values and rather high COD / BOD5 ratios were observed in the raw sewage during an off-peak tourist season. The research has also shown that the Biovac^® treatment plants (SBR technology) showed a high level of removal of pollutants from sewage discharged from mountain hostels.