Summary:

The expenditures on water and wastewater management, roads and schools are predominating in the commune’s investment expenditure structure. The main purpose of paper is to define the development rate of water and wastewater infrastructure and accompanying outlays on fixed assets serving the environmental protection. There were analyzed changes of investment outlays on water and wastewater in the period before and after Poland’s access to the EU (2002–2003 and 2004–2006). Gotten results were confronted with real changes in the infrastructural endowment. There was verified if the changes in investment expenditures followed the changes in the infrastructural endowment. The communes of the Nowy Targ district were chosen to the analysis. It has been proved that this district is characterized by high (but insufficient) level of infrastructural endowment and simultaneously by lowest dynamic of investments. The researches have shown that investment expenditures (on the wastewater management and protection of waters) were decreasing on average by 21% annually over the analyzed period. In the same time the infrastructural endowment has grown by 2,1%. It is also stated that the average rate of change of infrastructural indicators was higher before Poland's access to EU.