New measures to protect Europe’s groundwater

Date: 11/07/1996

MEMBER states will be asked to prepare detailed plans to protect Europe's crucial fresh water supplies up to the year 2000, under the groundwater action programme adopted this week by the Commission.

Although non-binding and concentrating on setting basic objectives, the measures will complement the Commission's planned framework directive on water management, due to be presented before the end of the year.

Responsibility for implementing the programme will lie firmly with the member states, who will be asked to identify groundwater resources, set rules to ensure their survival and come up with ways of controlling emissions of pollutants.

“The Commission should provide common principles and an overall framework for action,” the proposal stresses.

It sets out guidelines for the management of groundwater supplies and the abstraction of fresh water, and seeks to improve the integration of water policy into areas such as agriculture, industrial and regional policy.

Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard is also calling for consideration to be given once again to extending the possibilities offered by the 'agri-environmental' schemes which made up part of the 1992 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.

Drawing attention to a long-accepted weakness, the Commission identifies member states' water monitoring systems as a particularly weak link in efforts to improve quality.

Preliminary figures for the cost of monitoring measures proposed under the programme suggest that the tools currently in place fall well short of what is required to do the job effectively.

The Commission has also found that over 65&percent; of EU drinking water supplies comes from groundwater sources, and that abstraction rates increased by 35&percent; between 1970 and 1985. According to the data it has compiled, pesticide limits are exceeded in more than 25&percent; of agricultural land and nitrate limits in more than 20&percent;.