Summary:

The aim of the article is to present the changes in water and wastewater management in Poland before and during the WFD implementation. The basis for the analysis was data from Statistical Yearbook from Central Statistical Office – Environment Protection and from National Programme for Municipal Waste Water Treatment implementation reports. The total amount of the treated sewage in Poland increased by about 37,9% in multi-years period of 1980-2007, whereas the amount of untreated sew-age delivered to the environment decreased by as much as 83,4%. Moreover, the tendency for increasing amount of sewage treated in high performance technolo-gies is observed. The direct symptom of improvement in the situation is the ten-dency of decreasing BOD5, suspended solids, general nitrogen and general phos-phorus in the sewage drained into water or ground. Such tendency is visible especially regarding the two first indexes. As a result of National Programme for Municipal Waste Water Treatment implementation since 1990 the increase of amount of people who use the sewage treatment plant is clearly seen. Unfortu-nately, disproportions occur in the amount of tenants of cities and villages who use the sanitation and sewage treatment plants. At the end of 2006 about 85% people in cities exploited the sanitation and sewage treatment plants, whereas in the villages this amount didn’t transgress 25%. In the village areas high dynamism is observed in the sanitation systems development, due to yearly 1,3% increase of sanitation system users and 1,8% increase of sewage treatment plants users.