Factual Summary Report on the Open Public Consultation for the Impact Assessment of the possible revision of the lists of pollutants affecting surface and groundwaters and the corresponding regulatory standards in the Environmental Quality Standards, Groundwater and Water Framework Directive
1.Introduction and objectives of the Consultation
The public, agriculture, industry, and nature all need ‘non-polluted’ water. This means that the pollution of rivers, lakes, coastal waters and groundwater must be minimized. Hence, the Commission is looking into a revision of the lists of pollutants and corresponding regulatory standards in the Environmental Quality Standards (EQSD, Directive 2008/105/EC), Groundwater (GWD, Directive 2006/116/EC) and Water Framework Directives (WFD, Directive EC/2000/60).
Since 2000, the WFD has been the main legal instrument for water protection in Europe. Together with its “daughter Directives”, the EQSD and the GWD, it applies to inland, transitional and coastal surface waters as well as groundwaters and ensures an integrated approach to water management respecting the integrity of whole ecosystems, including by regulating individual pollutants and setting corresponding regulatory standards. According to the Directives, the Commission is under a legal obligation to regularly review these lists of pollutants
. The Fitness Check of EU Water Law
confirmed the need to reflect the latest scientific insights and developments in the lists of pollutants.
The WFD aims to ensure that all surface and groundwater bodies achieve “good status”. For a surface water body to be classified in overall good status, both good chemical and good ecological status must be achieved. For groundwater bodies, good quantitative and good chemical status must be achieved. To achieve the good chemicals status of surface and groundwater bodies, EQSD establishes the standards for Priority Substances, which ensure that Member States adhere to the thresholds set out for these substances.
Given the need to rely on the scientific evidence, the main consultation tool used to support the impact assessment/revision of the list, is a targeted consultation of experts via the structures developed under the Common Implementation Strategy for the WFD. The purpose of the online public consultation was to complement the targeted consultation by creating an opportunity to contribute to the process for the stakeholders that might have been left out from the targeted consultation. The key objectives were (i) to confirm the scope of the impact assessment/revision of the lists of substances and (ii) to collect factual information on potential impacts of proposed options and measures- particularly on potential costs and benefits.
2.Online Public Consultation – questionnaire/approach
The questionnaire for open public consultation was divided into 2 main parts:
1.Part I asks some general questions about responded to be able to generate the profile of the responded and if part of its organization
2.Part 2 addressed the public about the topic and respondents do not need any specialist knowledge of the Directives or water pollutants to reply to this part. This part was further divided into 3 main areas of interest:
a.Respondents level of concern about different pollutants presence in SW and GW
b.Respondents’ opinion on which regulatory measures issues contribute to the SW and GW pollution
c.Respondents’ opinion on which European Commission actions/strategies could improve the addressing of the pollution in SW and GW.
The questionnaire was made available in all EU languages and uploaded on Have your say.
The consultation was open for 14 weeks between 26th July 2021 and 1st November 2021.
3.Responses to the public consultation
In total 151 respondents answered the questionnaire. Although there was a total of 151 respondents, it should be noted that the number of responses to each specific question has varied throughout the survey. Due to the non-mandatory nature of most questions, it is typical that fewer than 151 responses have been provided to certain questions. No campaign was identified.
From the 151 respondents, Germany (26%), Belgium (17%) and France (13%) were the primary countries of origin. In total, from the 151 respondents 144 (95%) were from EU-27 countries. The remaining 7 were from Morocco (1), Norway (2), Switzerland (1), and the United Kingdom (3). The most common stakeholders to reply were (also seen in Figure 1) business associations (23%), EU citizens (22%) and company/business organizations (19%). Stakeholders who selected the ‘other’ option (11%) and provided a response included civil society organization (1), MS competent authority (3), water services and utility company (1), international organization (2). In the Figure 2 below you can find the scope of the stakeholders (International, EU, national, regional, local).
Figure 1 Stakeholders type
Figure 2 Scope of the stakeholders
Stakeholders also indicated their sector of activity (Figure 3). The highest number of responses indicated activity in the water industry and/or management (21%), and biodiversity and/or environment (18%). Stakeholders who responded ‘other’ included mining and extractive industries (4), education (1), and paper industries (1).
Figure 3 Stakeholders' sector of activity
In relation to organisation size (Figure 4), the majority of respondents stated they were from large (i.e. >250 employees) (40%), followed by those from micro organisations (26%).
Figure 4 Stakeholders' organization size
In the relation to the level of knowledge for the 3 directives (WFD, GWD and EQSD) and interactions between them, majority of stakeholders answered ‘5’ to each of the Directives listed, as shown in Figure 5. The WFD received the greatest number of responses indicating excellent knowledge/understanding (49%), followed by the GWD (41%). The interaction between the WFD, GWD and EQSD was regarded by respondents as the least understood/knowledgeable policy field, with 11% scoring ‘1’. Overall, a greater number of participants indicated that they had at least some knowledge (i.e. answers ‘4’ and ‘5’; 67% across all policy fields) for all policy fields, than those who indicated to have poor knowledge (i.e. answer ‘1’ and ‘2’; 16%).
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Please rate your knowledge of the following on a scale of 1 (no knowledge/understanding) to 5 (excellent knowledge/understanding)
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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The Water Framework Directive (WFD)
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4%
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4%
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11%
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32%
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49%
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The Groundwater Directive (GWD)
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6%
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11%
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19%
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23%
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41%
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The Environmental Quality Standards Directive (EQSD)
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5%
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12%
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21%
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25%
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37%
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The interaction between the WFD, GWD and EQSD
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11%
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10%
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19%
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24%
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35%
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Figure 5 Stakeholders' knowledge level of different directives and interactions between them
In relation to substances present, stakeholders were asked how concerned they were about the presence of pharmaceuticals, microplastics, substances from household items, pesticides, industrial chemicals and metals in both surface and groundwaters. Stakeholders were asked to rate their concerns on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). For both surface waters and groundwaters, stakeholders gave a score ranging from 3.5 (for microplastics in groundwater) to 4,3 (for pesticides and fertilisers in groundwater) for the substances listed, indicating that stakeholders are concerned about the presence of all substances listed.
Figure
6
below outlines the average scores for each substance.
Figure 6 How concerned are you about the presence of these substances in European surface water (L) and groundwater (R) bodies? Please rate your concerns on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much)
In relation to regulatory measures to combat water pollution, stakeholders were asked which measures and their implementation contributed to water pollution, and to rate their contribution on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). The average rating for each of the measures listed was above 3.0, indicating that stakeholders harbored at least some concern of their contribution to water pollution. As shown in
Figure
7
below, “lack of the use of ‘precautionary’ and ‘polluter pays’ principles…”, “lack of investment/incentives for emission reduction” and “lack of incentives to take control measures at the source of pollution” all received an average score of 3.8, whilst the last measure listed received the greatest number of ‘5’ responses (n=61, 41%).
Figure 7 Responses to the question: “Regarding regulatory measures and their implementation, in your opinion, to what extent do the following issues contribute to surface water and groundwater pollution?
In relation to European Commission actions/strategies to address pollution, stakeholders were asked to outline which policy actions/strategies could more effectively address surface and ground- water pollution. Three options were presented, where stakeholders could indicate on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much) which options should be improved. As shown in
Figure
8
below, option c ‘improve collection of data on new pollutants…’ received the highest average score of 4.2. Stakeholders further expressed a need for more transparent, publicly accessible data (n=6) to assist in making science-based decision-making.
Figure 8 Responses to the question: What in your opinion should the European Commission improve to ensure its policy actions / strategies address more effectively surface and groundwater pollution? Please rate each option below on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5