EU directive on drinking water

In the EU Directive on Drinking Water Quality [35], 23 individual chemical parameters have specific limits together with two group limits for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and pesticides. In the case of pesticides, no individual pesticide is permitted to exceed 0.1 pgL , and pesticides in total should not exceed 0.5 xgL" . These limits were a compromise, the original demand having been for a zero limit for pesticides in drinking water, and these standards were set, in 1998, as the effective analytical detection limit. The revision of this directive and its application to pharmaceuticals is currently under discussion, although it seems unlikely that specific limits will be set for individual pharmaceuticals [36]. 

N.B., proposed revisions of the EU Directive on drinking water may lead to pressure for these limits to be reduced - particularly for lead and arsenic. However, the implications of the above points should be determined before any reductions in these limits are accepted.)... 

EU Directive on Drinking Water - Past, Present and Future (by P. Hecq and A. Hulsmann)... 

EU DIRECTIVE ON DRINKING WATER - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE... 

It sub-divides the porous and non-porous groups into Types A and B, depending on the levels of toxic substances (Table 12.6). (N.B., proposed revisions of the EU Directive for drinking water may reduce the limits for lead and arsenic in... 

The municipal water supply is the same as tap water in the case of households, also referred to here as drinking water. Currently, Milan s water narrowly meets the EU standards as set by the 1980 European Commission Directive on Drinking Water Quality (80/778/EEC) and subsequently adopted in Italian law (DPR 236/88). The European Directive contains certain guidelines as well as maximum permissible concentrations for 71 parameters. The Italian interpretation includes conditions under which regional administrations can issue limited exemptions to water authorities regarding certain standards, in view of the extensive remedial measures and investment pressures created by the new standards (Funari et al.,... 

Under the Uniform Principle application, especially the maximum admissible concentration on drinking water of 0.1 gg L, set by EC Directive on Drinking Water (98/83/EC) [53], was a hurdle for a listing into Annex I for many compounds belonging to the class of PS II inhibitors. Nevertheless, although this standard value does not reflect any risk under toxicological assessment it is binding for all EU member states as, for example. The Pesticide Safety Directorate stated [54] ... 

Some EU Member States have also applied similar lifetime cancer risk estimates in judging tolerable risk levels. There is as yet no EU harmonized view on such default risk estimates at a policy level, although the starting point for the derivation of limit values for the general population in relation to the EU directives on ambient air and drinking water quality is the 10 lifetime risk for genotoxic carcinogens. 

The first generation of EU water legislation consisted of more or less isolated pieces of legislation, with little or no cross-referencing. The previous DWD 80/778/EEC only makes reference to one piece of EU legislation, namely the Council Directive on the Quality of Surface Water, intended for the abstraction of Drinking Water (75/440/EEC). The current DWD refers to a number of other directives that are related to the original directive or have interactions with that directive ... 

---