Brussels, 22/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has proposed improving the quality of European groundwater by setting quality objectives at European level, and by imposing two kinds of obligation on the Member States: firstly, to monitor and assess the quality of these waters in order to identify and reverse trends in pollution, and secondly to protect groundwater against the indirect pollution of the water as it moves through the ground.
A proposed directive to this effect has just been adopted by written procedure. This is a "daughter" directive of the framework directive on water (directive 2000/60/EC), which calls upon the Commission to present specific prevention and control measures against the pollution of groundwater. Once adopted, this new directive will fill the gaps in directive 80/68/EC, which aims to protect groundwater against direct and indirect discharges of a number of pollutants, but which lays down no clear quality objectives and does not enforce any systematic water monitoring. The Commission's objective is to help European to preserve a precious, very important resource. Groundwater is a reserve for the supply of water to drink, and to many applications in industry and agriculture. It also helps to maintain wetlands and rivers by acting as a buffer in times of drought, and to provide base flow to surface water systems year round.
Here are the principal elements of the directive:
Conformity with good chemical status of the water will be established via comparison between monitoring data and existing quality standards in Community legislation on nitrates, phyto-pharmaceuticals and biocides, which lay down limits as maximum concentrations authorised, for many pollutants in groundwater.
For all pollutants that are not covered by Community legislation, Member States will be obliged to establish limits by June 2006. In order to take account of the different characteristics of groundwater in the EU, these limits will be set at national, river basin or groundwater body level.
The proposed directive provides to specific criteria to identify significant and sustained upward tendencies, concentrations of pollutants, and to decided when to act to reverse trends (the action will be required when the concentration point of a pollutant reaches 75% of the quality standard or limit set by the Member States, as this percentage is considered symptomatic of a threat of worsening quality of groundwater).
Indirect discharges of dangerous substances will be banned or restricted, and regular check will be carried out to make sure their effects are being monitored.
Groundwater quality will be subject to harmonised monitoring and assessment throughout Europe, using quality criteria that are flexible enough to take account of local characteristics, and to allow future improvement.
In 2012, when a complete programme of measures to prevent or limit pollution of all water will take effect under the framework directive on water, measures to prevent or limit pollution of groundwater will be established, on the basis of results of the monitoring carried out under the proposed directive.
Commenting on this initiative of the Commission, Margot Wallström, Environment Commissioner, said in a press release: "water is a divine gift, but much abused. We depend on groundwater, and we must safeguard it. At the moment, we do not even have enough data about the quality of this vitally important resource in Europe. The proposed directive will help us to find out more and make sure that our groundwater is not being polluted".
EEB disappointed by failure to tackle chemicals resolutely
The European Environment Bureau (EEB) has described itself as disappointed by this directive which fails, according to the NGOs it is made up of, to remedy the alarming state of groundwater, protect what is not already polluted and impose a harmonised approach to dangerous chemicals and ones which may disturb the endocrine system. Although it is pleased that Member States are invited to take precautionary measures for an indicative list of chemicals, the EBB has criticised, in a press release, the fact that the Commission has decided against common and harmonised measures including checks on products and sale bans, as is the case for chemicals which pollute surface waters. In the same way, the EEB regrets the fact that the Commission is proposing quality standards solely for pesticides, leaving it up to Member States to establish standards for other pollutants.