Acea Ato 5 reports

Tariffs apply to customers connected to septic tanks.

Since 1 January this year, also customers whose sewerage system is connected to municipal Imhoff plants managed by Acea Ato 5, in the absence of a treatment plant, must pay for the water treatment service.
Some Municipalities have put Acea Ato 5 in charge of managing these water treatment plants which the company operates covering the costs to appropriately collect and dispose of sludge. These plants will remain operational until new sites on which to build new water treatment plants are identified.
Five Municipalities are served by these plants and a total of 10 infrastructures serve specific areas and neighborhoods. These are: Fontechiari, Monte San Giovanni Campano, Pescosolido, San Vittore del Lazio and Vicalvi.
In 2019, Acea Ato 5 asked for authorization from the Area Provider to apply water treatment tariffs to customers connected to sewerage systems that discharge sludge into Imhoff septic tanks, motivating the request with the fact that the company covers all costs for the regular maintenance, collection, transport and disposal of the sludge at authorized facilities, regularly analyzing incoming flows and carrying out maintenance in the areas where the Imhoff plants are located.
The Area Provider accepted Acea Ato 5's motivations and authorized the tariffs, subject to prior notification to customers. Acea Ato 5 complied with this requirement at the end of 2019.
In this regard, the Constitutional Court has clarified that water tariffs (including aqueduct, sewerage system and water treatment services) are due as payment for the services provided, specifying that by Law tariff amounts are determined in order to cover all the costs of the integrated water service and that the service that each customer receives must be paid at its economic value.
These are the principals at the basis of Decision no. 335/2008, with which the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional and voided the provisions that established that even customers who did not receive the service (for lack of central water treatment plants or because the plants were temporarily inactive) had to pay for it.
Therefore, customers who are not beneficiaries of water treatment services do not and should not have to pay for a service they do not receive. However, customers who are connected to Imhoff plants are comparable with customers connected to water treatment plants, therefore they should pay tariffs and contribute to cover the expenses, which would otherwise be covered by all customers except for those who actually benefit from the service.
It is worth mentioning that customers who do not use the service and have an autonomous waste management system, may request to be exempted from paying the water treatment tariff by contacting Acea Ato 5: via the website MyAcea.it; via email at commerciale@aceaato5.it or at the help desks in Frosinone and Cassino.