Riigikogu made amendments to Water Act
The Riigikogu passed with 77 votes in favour the Act on Amendments to the Water Act (405 SE). The Act regulates in detail the order of handling animal manure. If manure is sent to another person’s storage facility or handling site by the keeper of animals on the basis of a contract, then the livestock building used must have a leak-tight manure storage facility with holding capacity of at least one month. The new version does not obligate the keeper of animals to have additional storage facility if he/she has at his/her other livestock building a storage facility with sufficient capacity for both buildings, or if he/she is processing (e.g. composting) the manure near outlying storage facilities. Terms for acquisition of the permit for the special use of water for owners or possessors of a barrage are also provided by the Act. The owner or possessor of a barrage whose barrage has not been built for the purpose of the use of hydro-electric energy and who has failed to acquire a permit for the special use of water during the time when this Act has been in force, must acquire a permit for the special use of water not later than by 1 January 2012. The owner or possessor of a barrage built on a body of water approved as a spawning site or habitat of salmon, brown trout, salmon trout or grayling, or a section of such water body, whose barrage has not been built for the purpose of the use of hydro-electric energy must acquire a permit for the special use of water not later than by 1 January 2012. Nobody voted against the Act and nobody abstained.