Progress report for the Strategic Co-ordination Group
of 05-06 November 2008
Agenda item:7d Status: final
Authors:Jorge Rodriguez Romero & Madalina David
Working Group E on Priority Substances
ACTUAL STATUS
The 4th WG E Meeting held in Brussels on 15th – 16th of October 2008. This group is dealing with the WFD implementation related to priority substances issues.
Work programme for the review of the priority substances list
The work programme for 2008-2010 has taken into the previsions of the Article 8 of the new EQS Directive. Compliant with this article the Commission shall come up with a merged proposal (review of the priority substances list together with the EQS setting) by the end of 2010. Concurrently the substances listed in Annex III of this directive shall be consideredinter alia for possible identification as priority and priority hazardous substances. Based on these requirements a tentative timetable was presented to the last meeting of the WG E.
Prioritisation based on monitoring for the review of the list of priority substances (Decision 2455/2001/EC)
The Commission consultant made a prioritisation to identify candidates for new priority substances based on the monitoring data collected from Member States. The database consist of more than 5 million analysis from more than 380000 sampling occasions in 20104 stations, including information about 937 substances from 26 countries.
Both documents (The central database and associated data treatments and Prioritisation process: 1st stage ranking) prepared by the Commission's Consultants (INERIS) were circulated for consultation during the summer, the deadline for sending of the comments being the 15th of September.
The main conclusion of the presentation on database was that new data collection is still needed, in particular for the MemberStates who did not provide data or report small datasets, but also for transitional and coastal waters, sediment and biota, which are the main gaps. In addition, there is a need to collect information from the 13 substances that are in the annex III of the new Directive. The WG E members have been invited to express their intention to provide new/more data on priority substances by 31 October 2008, followed by the data submission using the available data tool (by 15 January 2009. During the meeting a factsheet for dissemination of the data have been presented and the members of the group were invited to send written comments by 31 October 2008.
The results of the 1st raking of the priority substancestogether with a table with the comments received were presented during the meeting. The intention is to incorporate all the comments received in the initial document prepared by the consultants and finalise it by the end of the year.
Draft Mandate for a mixing zones guideline
The concept of "mixing zones" has been introduced by the new EQS Directive. Article 4.4 of the new EQS Directive establishes that technical guidelines for the identification of mixing zones should be adopted through comitology.
The aim of the Drafting Group is to establish activities on mixing zones in order to support the work of the WG E on Priority Substances and therefore of the Common Implementation Strategy of the WFD 2000/60/EC. The Drafting Group on mixing zones will be lead by the United Kingdom and co-lead by the Netherlandsand the Commission.
The document on mixing zones prepared by INERIS in 2007 will be used as basis for the work developed by the Drafting Group. The Drafting Group will focus on the development of a technical guidance document (TGD) for the identification of mixing zones as request of the Article 4(4) of the EQS Directive. The TGD will outline strategies to reduce the extent of the mixing zones.
A tentative timetable for the further work on mixing zones was presented during the WG E meeting. First draft guidance will be sent for consultation to the WG E in early 2009.
The members of the WG E were invited to send comments in written on the mandate for mixing zones and proposed approach by 24 October 2008. Moreover the members are invited to express their interest to actively contribute to the work developed by this drafting group till the same date.
Proposal for a new activity on emissions
Following the results of the meeting of the EU water directors in Brdo in June 2008 this first draft mandate is prepared by the Commission and the co-lead countries the Netherlands and France.
The main objective of the new ad hoc activity will be to identify sources of priority substances that are not sufficiently addressed by existing measures and that significantly contribute to water bodies not reaching good status, and to identify potential measures to tackle those sources. It is expected that the focus of the activity will be on diffuse sources, but point sources will be addressed as necessary.
The document (How to build an inventory of emissions, discharges and losses) produced by IOW – Commission’s consultantsin 2007 will be used as background information.
A tentative timetable for the further work on emission activity was presented to the WG E. Compliant with this timetable is planed to deliver final report to the WG E in the first half of 2010.
The members of the WG E were invited to send comments in written on the new activity on emissions by 31 October 2008. Also members are invited to express their interest to join the drafting group by the same date.
Article 5.6 of the new EQS Directive establishes that technical guidelines for the establishment of the inventories should be adopted through comitology. The group agreed to take this work further next year, once the work by the drafting group on emissions delivers their first results.
Drafting Group on Prioritisation
The Mandate for the Drafting Group on Prioritisation led by JRC-IHCP is to develop a comprehensive methodology (based on monitoring and modelling data) for medium and long term revision of the priority substances. A number of prioritisations methodologies have been considered by the group. The drafting group proposed to use as a starting point the UK methodology which has been already applied and is workable. The Member States have been invited to comment on the UK methodology and the universe of chemicals used by17 November 2008.
TGD for Environmental Quality Standards derivation
The Mandate for the Expert Group on EQS led by UK and JRC-IHCP is to establish a guidance for EQS derivation. There are 6 technical sub-groups (generic issues, water column, metals, biota, sediment, non-testing methods) working on this issue and the working drafts of the guidance are already available.
Compliant with the timetable presented at the WG E meeting, the first Draft of the TGD will be ready in February 2009.
NEXT MEETINGS
Next meeting of WG E: 18-19 March 2009
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