New EU water quality controls due soon

The European commission will propose new EU water quality standards for a priority list of 33 dangerous pollutants next month, ENDS has learned.  It will also decide which of the pollutants should be earmarked as priority hazardous substances requiring a phase-out within twenty years.  But a plan to impose separate emission limit values on sources of the pollutants will be dropped.

The priority list was agreed five years ago (EED 09/10/01 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/10776), shortly after the EU water framework directive entered force in 2000.  Under the directive the commission was required to propose controls, including water quality standards and complementary emission limits, within two years.

But the deadline slipped due to a combination of delayed EU chemical risk assessments and political uncertainty over the prospects for new EU environment policy.  The plans then took a back seat to the draft thematic strategies produced by the environment directorate.

The commission will now propose quality standards in July.  But it will say that the emission limit values are no longer necessary to meet the framework directive's goals because existing and new EU legislation adopted in the interim impose sufficient curbs.  Any extra controls can be implemented nationally, it will say.

The directive sets a target of "progressive reduction" for emissions of the 33 priority substances, and "cessation or phase-out" of emissions of 11 of them additionally classified as priority hazardous substances (PHSs).  The commission says laws on pesticides and industrial pollution control plus imminent legislation on mining waste, mercury and the Reach chemicals reform will allow the EU to meet the targets.

"Our impact assessment [accompanying the proposals] will say not it's not cost-effective to have additional measures to those [already in place] at EU level," an official told ENDS.  "We don't have evidence to say that a Europe-wide approach would not be disproportionate."

News that separate emission controls for the substances have been shelved will disappoint environmentalists and toxics policy hawks Sweden and Denmark.  But the commission's stance also recognises that support for harmonised emission limit values (ELVs) among member states has dwindled to the point where only Germany, where the philosophy of ELV-based regulation runs deep, is strongly in favour.

The proposals will also determine - four years after the deadline (EED 24/01/03 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/13701) -which of 14 priority substances "under review" should be added to the 11 PHSs and thus made subject to the 20-year phase-out requirement.  The commission will also clarify what the "cessation" of emissions should mean in practice. 

Follow-up: European Commission http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm, tel: +32 2 299 1111, plus water framework directive pages http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/index_en.html.

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