Tina Garrity outlines the principles of the EU's new water directive, which aims to provide real guidance for European water policy

Over the years, EU water policy has been developed via a series of directives and decisions which have been adopted in a piecemeal fashion with no real guiding thread. All that is set to change with the adoption of a new directive which sets out a framework for Community action in the field of water policy. Some environmentalists fear, however, that without a serious commitment at the implementation stage the new framework may lead to a lowering of existing standards.
The stated principles of the new water regime are that it should:

• protect, enhance and prevent the further deterioration of aquatic ecosystems and those terrestrial ecosystems and wetlands directly depending on them;
• promote sustainable water use based on long-term protection of available water resources;
• aim at enhanced protection and improvement by means such as the phasing out of discharges and emissions/losses of hazardous and other substances;
• ensure the progressive reduction of groundwater pollution and prevention of further pollution; and
• help mitigate the effects of floods and droughts.

RIVER BASIN DISTRICTS
For each river basin within its territory, a member state must designate individual river basin districts with an appropriate competent authority to apply the directive therein. For each district there must be an analysis of its characteristics, a review of the impact of human activity on the surface and ground water therein and an economic analysis of water use. Monitoring programmes must be established for the waters concerned and each district must have a river basin management plan (details are set out in the directive's annexes). Water used for the abstraction of drinking water must receive special protection in order to reduce the level of purification treatment required in drinking water production.

ENVIRONMENTAL OBJECTIVES
Member states must implement the measures necessary to prevent deterioration and to protect, enhance and restore their waters with the aim of achieving good water status within the next 15 years, according to a set of indicators set out in an annex to the directive that defines what constitutes high, good and moderate status for a range of quality elements. The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) has expressed concern that while the wording used obliges member states to take protective measures, it does not oblige them to actually achieve good water status. Certain waters may be designated as "artificial" or "heavily modified" waters. Artificial waters are those created by human activity while heavily modified waters are those which, as a result of physical alterations by human activity, are substantially changed in character. For these waters, the overall objective will be to achieve good ecological potential and good surface water chemical status within 15 years.

In all cases, the 15-year deadline for improvement may be extended, but only provided there is no deterioration in water quality and provided certain other conditions are met (for example, the improvements required are not technically feasible within 15 years or natural conditions do not allow timely improvement or, more controversially, where improvements would be disproportionately expensive in that timescale). The expenditure factor and the technical feasibility factor may also be used to justify meeting less stringent environmental objectives for certain waters because of the scale of human impact or natural conditions involved. But this is only where the environmental and socio-economic needs served by such human activity cannot be achieved by means which are a significantly better environmental option not entailing disproportionate costs.

GROUNDWATER PROTECTION
Under article four, member states must prevent or limit the input of pollutants into groundwater and prevent the deterioration of the status of all bodies of groundwater. The EEB argues that the choice of prevention or limitation is a weakening of existing protection. Under the new directive only direct discharges of pollutants need be prohibited. The EEB has expressed concern that indirect inputs of dangerous substances (eg those percolating through the soil) would be allowed, yet it is these which are the most important cause of groundwater pollution, it claims. Even the prohibition on direct discharges contains exemptions, eg for mining wastewater, although such discharges would have to be authorised and must not compromise the achievement of environmental objectives for that body of groundwater. In addition to preventing or limiting pollution, member states are charged with reversing any "significant and sustained" upward trend in the concentration of any pollutant resulting from the impact of human activity.

PRIORITY SUBSTANCES
The directive requires a progressive reduction in pollution from priority substances and a cessation or phasing out of emissions, discharges and losses of priority hazardous substances. Measures on individual pollutants or groups of pollutants presenting a significant risk to or via the aquatic environment will be adopted at EU level. Substances will be listed by the Commission and prioritised for action on the basis of risk as identified under existing EU environmental legislation and by means of a target risk-based assessment, focussing solely on aquatic ecotoxicity and on human toxicity via the aquatic environment. There is also a simplified risk-based assessment procedure which the Commission may use in the short term to draw up an initial list of substances. This looks at things such as evidence of widespread environmental contamination revealed by monitoring. Quality standards for concentrations of the priority substances in surface water, sediments or biota will be established. Priority hazardous substances will be defined according to existing EU legislation and relevant international agreements. The timescale for eliminating discharges of the latter is set at 20 years.

Within two years of a substance appearing on the list, the Commission must propose control measures for it. This will include identifying the appropriate cost-effective and proportionate level of measures and a combination of product and process controls for both point and diffuse sources. Where agreement on control measures for substances on the initial list cannot be reached at EU level, member states will have six years to establish their own environmental quality standards.

WATER SERVICES
Article nine requires member states to take account of the principle of recovery of costs of water services, including environmental and resource costs and the polluter pays principle. By 2010, they must ensure that water-pricing policies provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently and that different water uses provide an adequate contribution to the recovery of the costs of water services. The original draft gave member states a discretionary exemption to allow a basic level of water use for domestic purposes at an affordable price. The CIEH argued that this should be an obligation, not a discretion. The final, agreed text drops the exemption in favour of a broad phrase saying that in meeting article nine member states may have regard to the social, environmental and economic effects of recovery.

PUBLIC INFORMATION, REPORTING AND PENALTIES
The directive requires member states to consult the public over river basin management plans which must then be sent to the Commission and other member states concerned. The Commission, which will be assisted by a new regulatory committee, also wants summary reports of the reviews and monitoring exercises required by the directive. Penalties for breach of the directive's provisions are left to the member states but they must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

The implementation date for the directive is 22 December 2003.

Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy. OJ L 327. 22.12.00

The EEB has recently published a handbook entitled EU Water Policy under the Water Framework Directive. Copies may be obtained from the EEB website at www.eeb.org