A shorter version of this interview was first published in the Toxic-Free for EU briefing. Click here to subscribe to our weekly briefing.
It’s Green Week in the EU, and the focus this year is on water resilience. We discussed one of the biggest challenges for water companies – PFAS ‘forever chemical’ pollution – with Harrie Timmer, Senior policy adviser at the Dutch association of water companies, Vewin.
Can you tell us more about Vewin?
Vewin is the Netherlands’ association of water companies. Our ten members are owned by municipal and provincial authorities and deliver high-quality drinking water throughout the Netherlands 24/7. The main task of Vewin is to represent its members’ interests in The Hague and Brussels. We aim to establish and maintain favourable conditions for the continuous production of good drinking water.
When did water companies first become worried about PFAS pollution in drinking water?
Several PFAS subgroups had been monitored for over 20 years in Dutch waters. Still, as long as the concentrations remained below the drinking water standard for individual micropollutants of 100 ng/l, they were not considered toxicologically relevant.
Approximately ten years ago, it became evident that the PFAS discharges from Chemours in Dordrecht, in the western part of our country, significantly impacted downstream intake points.
Additional risk evaluation by the National institute for public health and the environment, RIVM, led to tightening the limit values for PFOA in water and creating a new limit for GenX – both PFAS subgroups. Especially since the European Food Safety Authority’s 2020 opinion, it has become clear that PFAS may pose a risk at lower concentrations.
How do water companies meet the drinking water limits on PFAS?
The drinking water in the Netherlands is of high quality and fully complies with the applicable standards for PFAS, as laid out in the European Drinking Water Directive and implemented in Dutch law. These standards set a limit of 100 ng/l for the sum of 20 PFAS compounds, which our companies strictly monitor.
The quality of the sources, whether groundwater or surface water, varies in each region, which is why the purification techniques differ throughout the country.
As PFAS concentrations increase, drinking water companies are adjusting existing treatment processes to reduce PFAS levels in drinking water wherever possible. By using higher doses and more frequent reactivation of activated carbon and/or existing membranes, these companies can lower concentrations by 30-99%. In their operations, selective intake, selective use of groundwater sources, and blending of waters are also employed to reduce concentrations.
However, purification fundamentally conflicts with the following three points: PFAS does not disappear, but it is transferred to a waste stream; the polluter should pay instead of the consumer; and purification efforts should be reduced as agreed upon in the European Water Framework Directive.
How costly is the treatment process?
This is difficult to evaluate. But adjustment costs will keep increasing as long as we do not stop the production, emission, and import of PFAS.
This fundamentally contradicts the Water framework directive, according to which purification treatment costs should decrease – article 7(3).
At the moment, do citizens bear this cost?
Yes, and this will continue as long as PFAS are present in water sources. This is completely inconsistent with three principles of the EU law: the polluter pays, the precautionary principle, and tackling pollution at source.
What is needed to decrease the levels of PFAS in drinking water?
We, as well as the Dutch water authorities and our European water federation, EurEau, support the universal PFAS restriction proposal for a complete ban on PFAS in Europe as soon as possible and without many derogations. This way, we expect a 95% reduction in European emissions.
A complete ban on the production, use and discharge of PFAS is the only way to eventually eliminate these substances from drinking water sources.
Because PFAS are produced globally, and some of them also rain down globally, this ban should ultimately be implemented on a global scale.
While we wait for the EU restriction to enter into force, much more needs to happen at the national level, including in the Netherlands, to map and minimise PFAS emissions.
What are the financial costs of PFAS for society?
This analysis has been conducted multiple times by various entities., including Cordner (2021, USA), ChemSec (2023, SE), the Nordic Countries (2019, EU), Ling (2024) (see sources), and is also included in the REACH restriction dossier. The core conclusion remains that the societal costs borne by taxpayers are significantly higher than the industry’s often private benefits (see sources).
How can we improve the resilience of our water resources?
We need to apply stricter conditions for market approval, production, and emission of persistent, mobile, and toxic substances such as PFAS, to prevent them from entering our environment and, ultimately, our drinking water.
European regulations such as the Classification, labelling and packaging regulation, REACH, the Industrial emissions directive, and the Water framework directive are important instruments for this purpose.
These rules must be strictly implemented and enforced at the national level. Our country can do better in this area.
Sources:
- Cordner et al., The true cost of PFAS and the benefits of acting now (7 Jul. 2021)
- The Guardian, press article on PFAS global societal costs mentioning ChemSec, 2023 (12 May 2023)
- Nordic Co-operation, Fluorinated substances pollute for billions of Euros every year (14 Mar. 2019)
- Ling, Estimated scale of costs to remove PFAS from the environment at current emission rates (5 Mar. 2024)
- Water Framework Directive, article 7(3)
- EurEau, letter to President von der Leyen on the need to tackle PFAS pollution (04 Mar 2024)
