D10: Impact of Contaminants - Hydromod

Integrated Water Resource Management for Important Deep European Lakes and their Catchment Areas
EUROLAKES
D10: Impact of Contaminants
FP5_Contract No.: EVK1-CT1999-00004
Version: 4.0
Date: 25/07/01
File: D10-vers.4.0.doc
Page 10 of 136
The communication COM (1999) 706 final points at the financing of several research
works aimed at the development and validation of test methods for the identification of
endocrine disrupters by the Commission. Last but not least there is also a need to develop
and validate appropriate environmental monitoring tools. Existing Community
provisions of law on environmental and human health aspects of chemicals are based
on a three-stage approach. This approach is also described in COM (1999) 706 final. In
the first stage, the hazard identification, a substance's inherent capacity to cause adverse
effects on human health and the environment is identified, on the basis of the intrinsic
properties of a substance. The second stage is a risk assessment where the
risks in conjunction with the exposition of a chemical substance are evaluated. In the
third stage, the risk management, strategies for the management of risks are developed.
The directives being the basis for the hazard identification, the risk assessment
and the risk management are listed in Annex I of COM (1999) 706 final.
The Water Framework Directive Concerning the EDC Problem
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to give a comprehensive view of the WFD and the
authors have attempted to identify and focus on the key issues of the WFD that are related
to chemicals, analyse its provisions, point out weaknesses and ambiguities and
derive from them a number of political options which are crucial for the improvement of
European waters.
In September 2000, after a decade of political struggle, the European Parliament and
Council adopted the Water Framework Directive (WFD). There is no doubt that this new
framework for EU water legislation is a most complex package of objectives, instruments
and obligations. Two of the main goals of the Water Framework Directive are the
protection and improvement of the aquatic environment and the contribution to sustainable,
balanced and equitable water use. The Directive should also contribute to
achieving the objectives of relevant international agreements (e.g. OSPAR,
BARCELONA and HELCOM). This is important since some of the objectives laid down
by these international agreements are far-reaching and might ask for more stringent
measures than those currently required under the WFD. New instruments are introduced
in the EU water policy to protect and improve all European waters: an ecological
and holistic water status assessment approach; river basin planning; a strategy for
elimination of pollution by dangerous substances; public information and consultation
and finally, financial instruments. Despite these important additions to EU water policy
instruments, a number of problems are emerging from the directive. They need to be
dealt with as soon as possible to achieve clear and consistently positive results for EU
waters.
Some of the main weaknesses identified are:
- complicated and wide-ranging exemption and derogation conditions for the environmental
objectives for ‘heavily modified’ waters or for new physical modifications
for example;