Advances in Water Treatment and Enviromental Management

Chapter 2EUROPEAN DRINKING WATERSTANDARDS AND THEIRIMPLICATIONSM-M Bourbigots (Compagnie Générale des Eaux, Maisons-Laffitte,France)The EEC directive has given rise to a set of national regulations published in the countries.It represents a profound change in philosophy: the former rules, based on potability criteriahave been replaced by rules based on quality objectives. As we shall see later on, whendifficulties occur over respecting the standards, particularly with regard to pesticides,discussions are often focused on the toxic nature of these products, whereas the real debateconcerns the technical and economic problems created by the application of these qualitycriteria, and the time required before strict conformity can be reached: the debate is a politicalone.The distinction is not understood by public opinion and a great effort is required to popularizethe debat. In difficult circumstances, for instance, in the event of accidental pollution ordrought and so on, temporary waivers may be decided by the authorities with regards tosome of the qualities fixed by the regulations. Public opinion often wrongly jumps to theconclusion that the water is not drinkable. Neither do some people understand why waterthat is not considered to be potable in one country may be judged drinkable in another (seeTable 1).In France, the water supplier is answerable to his customers for the constant respect of theseobjectives. He is free to adapt the control routine of his laboratory as he thinks fit. Moreover,he is also controlled by a state laboratory appointed by the relevant department of the Ministryof Health at intervals and according to a programme laid down in the regulations. The watersupplies has to bear the financial burden of this control.Inquiries were conducted by the Ministry of Health, the Basin Authorities and the private andpublic water suppliers. For most of the parameters except Nitrates and pesticides, the pollutionare very localized and their excess can be dealt with additional treatment and structuralrenovations. A far more worrying aspect is agricultural pollution caused by nitrates andpesticides.NITRATES1— ORIGINThe importance of the nitrogen input to cultivated soil shows that agriculture, in the broadestsense of the term (including animal husbandry) is one of the main potential causes of water© 1991 Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd, EnglandWater Treatment—Proceedings of the 1st International Conference, pp. 17–2217