Will Brexit have any practical impact on the UK water safety sector?
Interestingly,the UK’s departure from Europe has coincided with the release of the newEuropean Drinking Water Directive (EU 2020/2184). Coming into force on 21January 2021, this overhauls and updates the 20-year-old previous 98/83/EClegislation and reinforces the importance of water quality standards andharmonisation among the member states.
The four nations
Inthe UK, responsibility for water quality is devolved across the four nations,making each administration separately responsible for its approach to adoption— or not — of EU legislation
England
In England and Wales , the regulator for drinking water quality is theDrinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) — however, the DWI is not the policymaker —that responsibility lies with Defra (the Department for Environment, Food andRural Affairs).
According toAnn Bunting, the DWI’s Principal Inspector for Stakeholder Engagement, EU Exitand Communications, no decisions have yet been made in England and Wales:“These [decisions] will be made by [Defra] ministers in the national interest.However, the Government line is that we wouldn’t necessarily follow Europebecause we’re an independent sovereign state."
However, “weare very keen that our legislation keeps up, it can’t deteriorate, we’ve gotgood legislation [and] we’ve got good drinking water quality that we want tomaintain. That will inevitably mean changing some standards over time, doingnew research....things do evolve.
“We tend tofollow the WHO guidelines (the WHO drinking water framework influenced thedirection of the new directive) for parameters in drinking water so that wouldbe a good point of reference that we might make use of — and that’s the Defraline. [While]... we’ve got the freedom to do things differently... the ambitionis to do them well.... “We’ve already got in our legislation quite a lot of theelements of water safety planning (outlined in the new directive)."
However, theDefra approach to the new directive currently (at the time of going to press)appears confusing.
A Defraspokesperson said: "We have been clear that we will not weaken any of ourworld-leading environmental standards. Now we have left the EU, where possible,we will look to enhance these standards even further.”
"There is existing secondary legislation that has transposed the EU's Drinking Water Directive in all four regions of the UK, covering public and private supplies of drinking water."
But thenproceeded to cite legislation that only covers England:“Drinkingwater policy is devolved, so we have the details for England's regulations.These are the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2016 (as amended) (S.I.2016/614) and the Private Water Supplies (England) Regulations 2016 (asamended) (S.I. 2016/618)."
Scotland
In fact, the situation in Scotland is completely devolved. Scottish ministers have made it clear that they want to keep up with European legislation
RosemaryGreenhill, Senior Policy Advisor for the Scottish Government’s Drinking WaterQuality Division, who works on transposing the new directive confirms:
“Irrespectiveof what Defra decides, Scotland can do what it wants, it can follow the riskassessments and bring in new parameters (outlined in the new directive).. butproblems can crop up where we share things such as products and materials...There are lots of issues that relate to the internal market...[we’re stillworking out] about what to do about that."
Wales
The decision on how to manage drinking water quality in Wales is ultimately in the hands of the Welsh Government, whose current focus is on water catchment. The Control of Agricultural Pollution Regulations to improve the health and quality of Welsh rivers, lakes and streams were introduced on 1 April 2021.
Northern Ireland
The positionin Northern Ireland, where the DWI is in charge of guidance on safe potablewater, also remains unclear, with the Northern Ireland Protocol causingnumerous complications. George McCracken, Director of Estates, Risk andEnvironment for the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust comments that there isunlikely to be a “move into a position where it’s going to changeradically...Whatever happens with Brexit you can’t see a situation where the UKis going to diverge with something as fundamental as water quality."
What changes are the new EU drinking water guidance bringing in?
Themain thrust of the new directive is the introduction of a risk assessmentapproach for source (catchment) to tap control to identify hazards (e.g.legionella risk assessment and legionnaires’ risk assessment). Observation ofspecific microbial parameters has also been updated with new parameters added,some parameters removed, lists of ‘new’ environmental contaminants and theintroduction of a ‘watch’ list.
Mostnoteworthy, Legionella, which has come to be considered a considerable healthburden in Europe, has now been added as a new significant risk from thedomestic drinking water systems (due to legionella in water). The directivestates that appropriate measures (e.g. legionella water testing) must be takento eliminate or reduce the risk of non-compliance with the parametric valuesset out — of 1000 CFU/L Legionella spp. — and that “those measures shall atleast target priority premises."
In relation to Legionella, the directive also encourages member states to promote training for plumbers and other professionals dealing with domestic distribution systems.
What happens next?
While Defraholds back on making a decision on where to go next, there are still a lot ofquestions and the whole area remains murky — despite the UK’s significantcontribution to the new directive while still a core member of the EU. Giventhe amount of work that’s gone into the new directive, will England, Wales andNI be re-inventing the wheel?
Independentmicrobiology consultant Paul McDermott, a former HSE inspector on Legionella,thinks not: “[Although] there’s more on Legionella... an additional samplingrequirement in practice ...this was already being done for healthcare."However, he notes that there could be implications for lower risk healthcaresettings, such as walk-in clinics, if the new directive were to be fully takenup — although this seems unlikely.
The internalmarket issue in relation to fixtures and fittings also remains uncertain. TerryMoss, Leader NPD UK Brassware at sanitaryware manufacturer Armitage Shankssays: “So far changes in regulations have not materialised for our industry, wewill still be working to the same product norms and requirement as before.However in the future this could change as we are now free to choose our ownpath with guidance from government bodies such as DEFRA and DWI."
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