Cinderellas stink all over. The Supreme Audit Office criticized ineffective local governments

The actions of local governments audited by the Supreme Audit Office to implement anti-smog resolutions aimed at improving air quality turned out to be ineffective, the Supreme Audit Office reported on Friday. She added that at the current rate of boiler replacement, their decommissioning in municipalities may take from 2 to 24 years.

The Supreme Audit Office (NIK) reported that the Lower Silesian, Łódź, Małopolskie and Silesian voivodeships were selected for the audit, where the permissible levels of pollutant concentrations were exceeded in 2023. The inspection covered key regional units responsible for preparing anti-smog resolutions (marshal offices) and carrying out tasks ensuring their implementation (city or commune offices). Four communes from the indicated voivodeships were selected for inspection, in which the highest exceedances of normative values ​​occurred in 2022–2023. NIK also used the results of another audit carried out in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship.

The Chamber emphasized that in response to poor air quality, all inspected provincial governments adopted anti-smog resolutions that introduced bans and restrictions on the operation of fuel-burning installations. These resolutions specified, among others: requirements regarding fuel quality and assumed the elimination of the oldest boilers, the so-called Cinderellas.

According to NIK, all audited communes reliably identified the problem of air quality related to low emissions and indicated in strategic documents actions aimed at reducing it. However, in three communes no environmental protection programs were developed, and in another three no reports on their implementation were developed, despite such an obligation.

In 15 out of 16 communes covered by the planned inspection, irregularities were found regarding illegal or unreliable conduct of inspections in the field of compliance with and application of air protection regulations. In some communes, inspections were carried out without appropriate authorization and no reports were prepared. Municipal employees and municipal/city guards often focused only on checking whether waste was burned in homes, and to a limited extent, they monitored compliance with the requirements of anti-smog resolutions.

As of July 1, 2024, over 781,000 were registered in the five voivodeships covered by the inspections. the so-called boilers and over 1.3 million boilers below class 5 (the most ecological), which should be replaced with more ecological ones within the next three years, i.e. by the end of June 2028.

According to the anti-smog resolutions in force in the Lower Silesian, Lesser Poland and Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodeships, no smoke cigarettes should be used anymore, and in fact there were still about 484,000 of them. In the Łódź and Silesian voivodeships, the liquidation process should have been completed earlier, by the end of 2024 and 2025, and almost 300,000 such boilers were still in operation there.

“Unfortunately, none of the inspected communes managed to fully effectively implement anti-smog regulations. In the 18 surveyed communes, between 2018 and 2023, a total of almost 29,000 solid fuel boilers were replaced, but over 42,000 boilers are still waiting for replacement, of which over 26,000 are non-class boilers, i.e. the most unecological ones. It should be noted that the communes were involved in the fight to improve air quality to varying degrees. Among others, Wałbrzych and Rybnik stood out positively in this respect, where almost half of all boilers mentioned in the 18 communes covered by the Supreme Audit Office were replaced,” the Chamber emphasized.

She noted that the estimated time needed to replace non-class boilers, at the average replacement rate from 2018 to 2023, will range from 2 to 24 years, and for boilers below class 5 from 3 to 40 years. NIK emphasized that eliminating non-class boilers from use is particularly important because they can emit almost three times more dust than class 3 boilers and ten times more than class 5 boilers, and emission of pollutants from solid fuel boilers is the main cause of poor air quality in Poland.

NIK requested the Minister of Finance and Economy to take action to introduce the obligation for the commune head, mayor or city president to verify the data and information contained in declarations on heat sources or fuel combustion sources before entering them into the IT system supporting the central register of building emission.

Moreover, the Chamber requested the Chief Inspector of Construction Supervision to ensure that the Chief Inspector of Construction Supervision verifies and improves the reliability of data included in the Central Emission Register of Buildings (CEEB), regarding the number of solid fuel heat sources, also in cooperation with municipalities.

NIK also recommended to commune heads, mayors and city presidents to fully implement and intensify corrective actions specified in air protection programs (POP), especially in relation to activities related to the implementation of anti-smog resolutions. In turn, marshals should use the POP's capabilities to the greatest extent possible to define tasks conducive to the implementation of anti-smog resolutions, including establishing indicators enabling measurement of the results achieved in the field of replacing boilers and inspecting individual heating systems. (PAP)

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