EUROFER Position Paper on Environmental Quality Standards

Eurofer position on the proposal for a Directive on Environmental Quality Standards in the field of the water policy and amending Directive 2000/60/EC (COM (2006) 397 final)

The European steel industry, as represented by EUROFER, recognises the importance of preserving the quality of surface waters while considering the competitiveness of the EU industry as underlined in the Lisbon process. Therefore we welcome the Commission’s recognition of metals’ bioavailability when assessing the monitoring results against the EQS in this proposal, thus addressing only the actual effect of metals on the environment.

EUROFER would like to stress the commitment of the steel industry towards the environment and believes that the IPPC Directive should be the main tool to control industrial sources. We are convinced that the application of the IPPC Directive is the best approach to ensure the sustainable improvement of environmental performance of European industry.

Hereafter EUROFER provides comments on the most critical aspects of the proposal as it relates to the steel industry.

EQS and IPPC Directive

EUROFER supports the IPPC Directive that, with its integrated approach to prevent and reduce pollution, ensures a high level of protection of the environment as a whole, considering water, air, and soil together to avoid cross-media contamination and taking environmental objectives (including cross media effects), local conditions and economic aspects into account in a balanced manner. Furthermore, the IPPC Directive drives a continuous improvement in environmental performance through the regular updates of the BREFs (Bat REFerence documents), which contain the description of the Best Available Techniques (BAT).

Based on the premise laid down in Directive 2000/60/EC regarding the establishment of principles of sustainable water policy, and the recognition that human activity or even natural conditions can affect bodies of water in such a way that it may be unfeasibly or unreasonably expensive to achieve “good status”, Eurofer urges the inclusion in the EQS directive of provisions which fit with the integrated and balanced concepts of the IPPC directive, including Art. 10 and Art. 13 (2).

In particular, the application of Art. 10 must be foreseen only to face specific situations and not as general rule, otherwise the integrated approach of the IPPC Directive would completely lose its sense. Moreover, as emphasised in the Commission’s report “COM (2003) 354 final”, additional measures to the BAT must be taken only if an installation makes a significant contribution to local pollution and the use of the BATs is not enough to meet a quality standard.

The EQS should not systematically require any measures entailing disproportionate costs. Regarding industrial installations covered by the IPPC Directive, they should not systematically involve measures beyond the application of BATs, as defined by Art. 2 (11) of Directive 96/61/EC. In particular, they should not lead to the closure of installations. However, they would require MSs to take all cost-effective abatement measures in the relevant sectors into account.

In particular it is crucial to clarify how the specific discharges will be monitored, controlled and required to be decreased as referred to in Art. 3 (3) of the proposal. The steel industry has made huge investments and improvements to decrease emissions and more will take place. From November 2007, when the IPPC Directive will be fully implemented, all installations will be progressively working under BAT-conditions. The BREF documents, describing the BATs, are regularly revised and thus in this context industrial installations will continuously improve their environmental performances therefore helping to achieve water policy objectives.

Art. 13 of the IPPC Directive already foresees, where necessary, the review and update of permit conditions, in addition to the planned permit review process. Including requirements for permit review in Art. 3 (3) of the EQS Directive will not be in line with the Better Regulation objectives of the European legislation and will not help to streamline legislation. The EQS Directive should focus on water policy and should not duplicate existing legislation in force.

Cessation

A clarification of the term “cessation”, related to the provisions for the Priority Hazardous Substances, is needed and it must be clarified how naturally occurring substances should be treated in this respect.

The steel industry not only processes natural raw materials (e.g. iron ore and coal) but also recycles steel scrap, thus contributing to the fulfilment of the EU objective to increase recycling and sustainable use of natural resources. Water is needed in the processes for different purposes, such as cooling or cleaning of the off gases before being released to the atmosphere. Although BATs for waste water treatments are applied, in order to minimize the amount of substances released to the environment, metals and other natural substances contained in the processed materials might be present at low concentrations in waste water flows. Therefore it is unrealistic to ask for zero emissions and the exemptions granted by the Water Framework Directive should be taken into account.

In particular, when applying the combined approach set out in Article 10 of the Directive 2000/60/EC, Member States shall consider the reference emission levels associated with the BATs described in the BREFs.

Eurofer asks for a clarification of the term “cessation” in the Directive, as well as the inclusion of a clear reference to the exemptions granted by Art. 4 (4), (5) and (6) of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC).

Transitional areas of exceedance

Eurofer welcomes the introduction in Art. 3, of the concept of “transitional area of exceedance”. Nevertheless several points under this article need to be clarified.

Defining a ”transitional area” is a very complex task and depends directly on the local conditions of each water body, in particular on the dilution factor, i.e. water flow and size of the water body receiving the discharge.

It is therefore important to ensure that the methodology to define the transitional areas of exceedance, to be developed by the Commission under the terms of Art. 3 (4), takes local conditions into account.

Furthermore, the term "affected by discharges", used in Art.3 (3), needs to be clarified.

Metals’ natural background values

Annex I (Part C) (3) of the current proposal allows MSs to take natural background values into account when assessing exceedances of an EQS. However:

Eurofer believes that, for the sake of consistency, the assessment of the monitoring results against the EQSs should always take into account background concentrations, even when they are lower than the EQSs. This is particularly important in countries where natural background concentrations of metals are high.

Moreover, in order to allow comparison of monitoring results amongst Member States, methodologies should be harmonised.

Need for guidance and technical specifications

Eurofer points out that the development of technical specifications and guidelines is essential to allow a harmonised EQS compliance assessment throughout the EU.

Harmonisation is especially needed for monitoring, sampling and analysis methodologies, for the calculation of annual averages and, as already mentioned, for the determination and assessment of transitional areas of exceedance.

Concentrations of substances in sediment and biota

Sediments and in particular biota, are dynamic elements within the aquatic environment, and the methodology to analyse them is extremely complex. Therefore, when variations of the concentrations of substances within them are found, it cannot even be determined where the pollution comes from whether it is from an anthropogenic point source or caused by natural factors.

In Recital 10 of the proposal the Commission recognises that there is absence of reliable information on concentrations of substances in biota and sediments and concludes that in view of the fact that information on surface water seems to provide a sufficient basis to ensure comprehensive protection and effective pollution control, establishment of EQS values should be, at this stage, limited to surface waters.

Therefore we consider that the requirements set in Art. 2 (2) are not justified at all, and we ask for its deletion and for consistency we also ask for deletion of the two last sentences of Recital 10 that constitutes an additional obligation for Member States, which is not provided by the WFD.