EurEau newsletter - edition 7 - October 2016

EurEau Congress 2016: Copenhagen
Our annual congress took place in Copenhagen on 19-20 September, where we were joined by 130 colleagues from across Europe.

Our conference on ‘Resilience to climate change’ which was held under the auspices of COP22 gave us plenty to think about. Dr Hans Bruninckx, Executive Director with the European Environmental Agency’s gave an inspiring speech. We will draft a report which will be available soon.

Water reuse
Pedro Béraud, from APDA, represented EurEau at a workshop hosted by The Global Wastewater Initiative (UNEP/GPA) at the IWA Water and Waste Water Symposium on 18 September at Coimbra, Portugal. He presented the situation of water reuse in Europe. Roberto Mazzini, chair of the JWG on Water Reuse, attended the IDA (International Desalination Association) conference entitled ‘Water reuse and Recycling: turn vision into reality’ on 26 and 27 September in Nice. He presented the case of the NOSEDO waste water treatment plant (Milan).

Pier Paolo Abis will attend the Ad-hoc Task Group on Water Reuse meeting (Common Implementation Strategy of the Water Framework Directive) on behalf of EurEau. This meeting will be held in Madrid (Spain) on 17 and 18 October. An update of the technical development of minimum quality requirements for water reuse in irrigation and groundwater recharge will be presented by the Joint Research Centre.
Thank you all for your dedicated time.


Drinking Water Directive 
The Expert Group on the Drinking Water Directive met on 22 September. The European Commission gave an update on the review of the DWD. All relevant documents are available here. The minutes will follow and will be uploaded on the intranet.

On the 23 September, in the context of the review process of the DWD, the European Commission and the WHO organised a stakeholders’ meeting on the Annex I parameters. The evaluation conducted in 2015 confirmed that the DWD is a suitable tool to ensure the quality of the water consumed in the EU and fulfils its purpose to enforce drinking water monitoring and its restoration in case of non-compliance. However, areas with room for improvement that the European Commission is considering include parameters, risk-based approach, information to consumers, contact materials.
The report from the meeting by Dr Claudia Castell-Exner, who attended on behalf of EurEau, and the relevant documents are available here.       
 
OECD 
The 8th Water Governance Initiative Meeting will be held on 12-13 December in Rabat. The objective is to develop water governance indicators to provide governments and stakeholders with a self-assessment tool. 

New position papers
The EurEau General Assembly adopted three new position papers in Copenhagen:

• Making the Right to water and sanitation a reality     in Europe
• Cost recovery and water pricing
• Access to water and measures in case of non-payment.

 
Fertiliser Regulation
The European Parliament has now nominated most of the rapporteurs to work on the file. Elisabetta Gardini MEP, rapporteur in ENVI committee, hosted a breakfast to share her views on the text on 28 September at the European Parliament in Brussels. She was happy to have a larger scope for encouraging a level playing field for organic fertilisers but she also asked that heavy metal concentrations for inorganic fertilisers are less strict for producers. Other rapporteurs were also present and EurEau will meet them in order to show that good quality sewage sludge should not be excluded from input material for compost and digestates.
 
Communications and media
The Estonian Water Association, EVEL, produced a video on consumer awareness of water. You can view it here.

The UN High Panel on Water met recently, calling for action on how the world looks at water. You can read more here.

News from our members

Happy birthday to ALUSEAU, who will be 40 this month. EurEau Vice President Dr Claudia Castell-Exner spoke at it.

The Finnish water association FIWA will be 60 in November!

Hello!

EurEau welcomed our new secretary general, Oliver Loebel, today, Monday 3 October.

Anna Pomassl from OVGW, one of our Austrian members, will be seconded to the EurEau Secretariat for four weeks starting from October 18.  

Important dates

10-11 October: Envicon in Poznan, Poland. Carla Chiaretti will represent EurEau in the special session on the circular economy.

11-12 October: Bruno Tisserand will speak about water affordability mechanisms and ‘the purpose of benchmarking’ at the IWA conference in Brisbane, Australia.

27 October: Malmo, Sweden. ESPP workshop on ‘Pharmaceuticals and organic chemicals in sewage biosolids: questions for recycling’.

Information -   Registration .

27 - 28 October: Nordic waste/water federations conference: Phosphorus a limited resource - closing the loop. This conference with a focus on phosphorus recycling in a circular economy perspective is organized by the Danish Waste and Ressource Network Denmark (DAKOFA), Swedish Waste Management Association (Avfall Sverige) and the Norwegian Waste Management and Recycling Association (Avfall Norge). Website.

8 November: Bruno will present EU water policy at EcoMondo in Rimini, Italy at the ‘Piazza delle Utilities’ in the Lunch Conference - from 13.30 to 15.00.

2 December: Bruno will speak at ‘Water resources in Italy and Europe’ in Cremona, Italy on the topic of ‘Europe: problems strategies and challenges in the water sector’.

6-9 June 2017: ASTEE in Liege, Belgium