The key objective of the EU Water Framework Directive is to ensure that all water bodies achieve good qualitative and quantitative status. The Chemicals Investigation Programme (CIP) was launched in 2010 to help the water industry, and its environmental regulators understand the potential contribution this industry could make to ensuring that Environmental Quality Standards were met. Co-ordinated by UKWIR, CIP comprises a wide-ranging series of projects that benchmark current environmental performance, prioritise substances of concern and seek to understand upstream and treatment interventions that will best ensure discharge compliance. This programme is also helping to illustrate the magnitude of the water industry’s impact on water body quality within the context of other contributors, such as industry and agriculture.
To date, CIP has included investigations at some 600 sewage treatment works and has examined more than 70 substances of interest, including hazards as varied as fire retardants, microplastics, pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Due to the breadth and nature of the investigations, CIP comprises the largest contemporary scientific evaluation of the impact of anthropogenic sources on UK water quality and will be key to setting and managing future compliance with Environmental Quality Standards.
UKWIR are due to report the findings from the latest phase of CIP soon. These will be landmark publications on the occurrence, significance, and fates of hazards of relevance to UK water quality and will inform future treatment, operational and regulatory requirements to ensure sustainable compliance with Environmental Quality Standards. With the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) under review, the mechanisms by which the water industry might respond to the CIP programme during PR24 are currently in flux.
Aqua Enviro are holding a 1-day conference on 12th May to share insight into the latest phase of CIP projects and the specific challenges our water industry is currently wrestling with.
Get one up on WINEP – register here https://conferences.aquaenviro.co.uk/events/conferences/get-one-up-on-winep/
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