Opening the floodgates to pollution?
25 Sep 2003
The European Commission has adopted a proposal for a new European Directive that it says will protect groundwater from pollution. But the European Environmental Bureau thinks that it doesn't go far enough to tackle the problem.
'It is disappointing that after two years of consultation that the Directive misses the opportunity to protect our remaining unpolluted groundwater or set EU harmonised approach to deal with hazardous or potentially hormone disrupting chemicals that can persist for decades in the groundwater,' said Stefan Scheuer from the EEB.
Although the Commission has proposed legislation that establishes groundwater quality standards for pesticides, it leaves it up to Member States to establish their own for other pollutants.
The EEB opposes such an EU pesticides standard as it relaxes the existing groundwater directive and 'gives agricultural businesses a special right to pollute up to the standard, with no effective controls to prevent this from happening'.
'A general 0.1 microgram/l pesticides standard for groundwater is meaningless for human and ecological health,' added Robert Cunningham from The UK Wildlife Trusts.
Protection of groundwater from chemical pollution is already covered by the 1980 Groundwater Directive, which will be replaced by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in 2013.
