1.

For the purposes of assessing groundwater chemical status in accordance with Article 4, the following groundwater quality standards will be the quality standards referred to in Table 2.3.2 in Annex V to Directive 2000/60/EC and established in accordance with Article 17 of that Directive.

2.

The results of the application of the quality standards for pesticides in the manner specified for the purposes of this Directive will be without prejudice to the results of the risk assessment procedures required by Directive 91/414/EEC or Directive 98/8/EC.

3.

Where, for a given body of groundwater, it is considered that the groundwater quality standards could result in failure to achieve the environmental objectives specified in Article 4 of Directive 2000/60/EC for associated bodies of surface water, or in any significant diminution of the ecological or chemical quality of such bodies, or in any significant damage to terrestrial ecosystems which depend directly on the body of groundwater, more stringent threshold values will be established in accordance with Article 3 and Annex II to this Directive. Programmes and measures required in relation to such a threshold value will also apply to activities falling within the scope of Directive 91/676/EEC.

1.

The determination of threshold values should be based on:

2.

The determination of threshold values should also take account of the origins of the pollutants, their possible natural occurrence, their toxicology and dispersion tendency, their persistence and their bioaccumulation potential.

3.

The determination of threshold values should be supported by a control mechanism for the data collected, based on an evaluation of data quality, analytical considerations, and background levels for substances which may occur both naturally and as a result of human activities.

Arsenic

Cadmium

Lead

Mercury

Ammonium

Chloride

Sulphate

Trichloroethylene

Tetrachloroethylene

(a)

information on the number of bodies or groups of bodies of groundwater characterised as being at risk and on the pollutants and indicators of pollution which contribute to this classification, including the observed concentrations/values;

(b)

information on each of the bodies of groundwater characterised as being at risk, in particular the size of the bodies, the relationship between the bodies of groundwater and the associated surface waters and directly dependent terrestrial ecosystems, and, in the case of naturally-occurring substances, the natural background levels in the bodies of groundwater;

(c)

the threshold values, whether they apply at the national level, at the level of the river basin district or the part of the international river basin district falling within the territory of the Member State, or at the level of a body or a group of bodies of groundwater;

(d)

the relationship between the threshold values and:

1.

The assessment procedure for determining the chemical status of a body or a group of bodies of groundwater will be carried out in relation to all bodies or groups of bodies of groundwater characterised as being at risk and in relation to each of the pollutants which contribute to the body or group of bodies of groundwater being so characterised.

2.

In undertaking any investigations referred to in Article 4(2)(b), Member States will take into account:

3.

For the purposes of investigating whether the conditions for good groundwater chemical status referred to in Article 4(2)(b)(i) and (iv) are met, Member States will, where relevant and necessary, and on the basis of appropriate aggregations of the monitoring results, supported where necessary by concentration estimations based on a conceptual model of the body or group of bodies of groundwater, estimate the extent of the body of groundwater having an annual arithmetic mean concentration of a pollutant higher than a groundwater quality standard or a threshold value.

4.

For the purposes of investigating whether the conditions for good groundwater chemical status referred to in Article 4(2)(b)(ii) and (iii) are met, Member States will, where relevant and necessary, and on the basis of relevant monitoring results and of a suitable conceptual model of the body of groundwater, assess:

5.

Member States will present the groundwater chemical status of a body or a group of bodies of groundwater on maps in accordance with Sections 2.4.5 and 2.5 of Annex V to Directive 2000/60/EC. In addition, Member States will indicate on these maps all monitoring points where groundwater quality standards and/or threshold values are exceeded, where relevant and feasible.

1.

in accordance with Section 2.4 of Annex V to Directive 2000/60/EC, the monitoring programme will be so designed as to detect significant and sustained upward trends in concentrations of the pollutants identified pursuant to Article 3 of this Directive;

2.

the procedure for the identification of significant and sustained upward trends will be based on the following elements:

3.

the identification of significant and sustained upward trends in the concentrations of substances which occur both naturally and as a result of human activities will consider the data collected before the start of the monitoring programme in order to report on trend identification within the first river basin management plan referred to in Article 13 of Directive 2000/60/EC, where such data is available.

1.

the starting point for implementing measures to reverse significant and sustained upward trends will be when the concentration of the pollutant reaches 75 % of the parametric values of the groundwater quality standards set out in Annex I and of the threshold values established pursuant to Article 3, unless:

For activities falling within the scope of Directive 91/676/EEC, the starting point for implementing measures to reverse significant and sustained upward trends will be established in accordance with that Directive and with Directive 2000/60/EC;

2.

once a starting point has been established for a body of groundwater characterised as being at risk in accordance with Section 2.4.4 of Annex V to Directive 2000/60/EC and pursuant to Part B, paragraph 1 of this Annex, it will not be changed during the six-year cycle of the river basin management plan required in accordance with Article 13 of Directive 2000/60/EC;

3.

trend reversals will be demonstrated, taking into account relevant monitoring provisions contained in Part A, paragraph 2.

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Amendment 1 and the first part of amendment 2 were unclear in terms of the difference between ‘pollution’ and ‘deterioration’. A reference to the need to prevent deterioration of the status of groundwater bodies, consistent with WFD, was added to Article 1.

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Amendment 3 would have imposed on all groundwater bodies the standards applied to bodies used for the extraction of drinking water, which would not be realistically feasible. The same applies to the first part of amendment 62 (of which the second part was accepted by the Council), to point 2(b) of amendment 65 and to amendment 68.

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The aims set out in amendments 95 and 100 were best pursued through the Community Framework Programmes for Research.

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Amendment 4 was not in line with the WFD, which clearly distinguishes between protection levels for groundwater and surface waters.

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Amendments 7, 10 and 80, as well as item (aa) of amendment 15, addressed the quantitative status of groundwater. This was outside the scope of this daughter Directive, which is exclusively about qualitative status, as defined in Article 17 of the WFD.

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Amendments 8 and 9, referring to other policy areas, were not in line with the guide for the drafting of Community legislation, like amendment 13, which was considered to interpret the WFD rather than justify the Groundwater Directive.

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Amendment 11 was not needed because the text of the common position established, under Article 6, a regime equivalent to that contained in Directive 80/68/EEC.

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Amendment 16 duplicated provisions from Article 5 of the WFD which clearly establish responsibilities with regard to characterisation.

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Amendment 17 was not acceptable because the Council considered that a clear distinction, both conceptual and terminological, between quality standards set at Community level and threshold values to be determined by the Member States according to national hydro-geological specificities was an essential element of the proposed Directive. Weakening or refusing this approach would make implementation more complicated and less effective in terms of results. The same applies throughout the text, to all or parts of amendments 30, 31, 34, 36, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 89, and 90.

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Amendment 18 was acceptable in principle, but the wording was clarified to better address the notion of trends potentially leading to environmental risk.

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Amendments 19 and 20 were acceptable in part but were inconsistent with the WFD as drafted. Elements taken from both were combined in Article 2(4).

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Amendment 21 redefined an existing term in the WFD and could have led to confusion. The WFD requires ‘no deterioration of the status of bodies of groundwater’, not of quality.

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Amendments 22 and 24, as well as the first part of amendment 38, referred to concepts that are not used as such in the common position, and presented serious practical difficulties. However, the issue of naturally occurring concentrations (also hinted at in amendment 91) is addressed in recital 7.

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Amendments 23, 49 and 93 introduced a new, complex and unnecessary term that could have led to widespread misinterpretation. Historical contamination is adequately covered by more general provisions in the common position and in the WFD.

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Amendment 56 was not relevant given the scope of the proposed directive.

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Amendment 27 was incompatible with the Council's view that quality standards and threshold values should be set at levels relevant to the risk to groundwater bodies.

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Amendments 57 and 59 were unnecessary since the common position addresses the meaning of good and poor chemical status.

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Amendment 37 was unnecessary with regard to the WFD definitions of pollutant and pollution.

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Amendment 40 was unacceptable because Member States are responsible for implementing the programme of measures.

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The issues addressed in amendments 41 and 58 were covered respectively in Annex IV and Annex III of the common position.

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Amendment 46 was not acceptable because it used a provision derived from Directive 80/68/EEC in a very different context, which would make it unworkable.

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Amendments 51, 52 and 54 duplicated provisions of the WFD. As far as amendment 50 is concerned, the Council introduced language inspired from Directive 80/68/EEC (Article 15) in Article 6(4), bearing in mind the need to minimise the bureaucratic burden.

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Amendment 55 unduly excluded Annex III from possible technical adaptation.

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The deletion proposed in amendment 60 would have led to incompatibility between this Groundwater Directive and Directive 91/676/EEC. The common position clarifies the relationship between these two directives.

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Amendment 64 was no longer relevant as such, because the common position addresses the issue of compliance in a different manner, the aim being to avoid a situation where non-compliance at one single monitoring point would mean non-compliance for the whole groundwater body or group of bodies (see Article 4 and Annex III).

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Amendments 73, 76, 77, 78, 79 (first part), 83, 84 and 85 were no longer relevant. In particular, the Council felt that the fixed time series approach in the original proposal was inapplicable given the variety of hydro-geological conditions across the EU and that common criteria should be defined only for trend identification and for the starting point for trend reversal (Annex IV). The second part of amendment 79 (similar to amendment 89) was incorporated in spirit in Annex IV, point 1.3.

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Amendment 81 was confusing and inconsistent with the WFD. However, Article 5(2) of the common position clarifies what is to be protected.