Environmental Project No. 1182 2007 – Possible Control of EU Priority Substances in Danish Waters

Possible Control of EU Priority Substances in Danish Waters

1 Introduction

1.1 Background
1.2 Objectives
1.3 Project Implementation

1.1 Background

The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) was issued to establish a new, comprehensive regime for the protection of inland surface waters, transitional waters, coastal waters and groundwater inter alia through measures against chemical pollution by priority (hazardous) substances (Article 1, c). The WFD Article 16 requires the Commission to bring forward specific proposals for priority substances in surface waters.

The WFD specifies the long-term goals for priority substances which are

to prevent deterioration for surface and groundwater;
to achieve good chemical status for surface water and groundwater in 2015 by protection, enhancement and restoration of all surface water and groundwater bodies;
to progressively reduce pollution from priority substances and ceasing or phasing out emissions, discharges and losses of priority hazardous substances to surface waters.

The list of priority substances (including proposals for priority hazardous substances) was established already in 2001 by Decision no. 2455/2001/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council. Since then work has been ongoing in the Commission to prepare the scientific basis for a Daughter Directive of the WFD intended to establish, among others, environmental quality standards (EQS) for the priority substances (PS), identify the substances to be regarded as priority hazardous substances (PHS), and define the regulatory requirements applying to these substances.

In the autumn of 2004, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (DEPA) received a draft list of EQSs for the priority substances. As a first step towards assessing the consequences for Denmark of the anticipated Daughter Directive, DEPA decided to undertake a screening exercise to clarify to what extent achieving compliance with the EQSs would require further action by Denmark.

As summarised in Chapter 2 of the report, the screening found that for most of the substances the current levels in discharges and in the aquatic environment in Denmark already comply with the Annual Average (AA) EQS (or, in the case of stormwater, the Maximum Allowed Concentration (MAC) EQS), while 10 substances would potentially require implementation of additional national measures.

In July 2005, an unofficial draft Daughter Directive was made available comprising the mentioned EQSs, a list of PHSs, and requirements to the progressive reduction or phase-out or cessation of emissions, discharges and losses of PSs and PHSs respectively. The main parts of this report were prepared based on this draft version of the Daughter Directive.

However, it was found that the official Daughter Directive proposal (COM(2006) 397 final) released in July 2006had been significantly changed compared with the 2005 draft. It was therefore decided to review the report once more, reconsider the assessments made based on the draft proposal and define an additional impact scenario to accommodate the changes made to the official directive proposal from the Commission.

1.2 Objectives

The objective of this study is to make a technical and economic assessment of the consequences for Denmark of implementing the Priority Substances Daughter Directive. The assessment is intended to serve as part of the basis for national political decision-making on the issue.

1.3 Project implementation

The first phase of the study was initiated in September 2005 and completed in January 2006 while Phase 2, the revision based on the official Daughter Directive proposal, was conducted from July to September 2006.

The work was carried out by a team of COWI A/S consultants consisting of Jesper Kjølholt (project manager), Dorte Vigsø, Peter Engbo Rasmussen, Erik Hansen, Klaus Winther Ringgaard and Karsten Arnbjerg.

A "task force" at DEPA consisting of Lis Morthorst Munk (project responsible), Steen Pedersen, Alf Aagaard, Elisabeth Paludan, Jørgen Schou, Jens Brøgger Jensen, Vibeke Vestergaard Nielsen and Susanne Rasmussen participated actively during the implementation of the project, in particular in the process of clarifying methodological issues.