European Member States start monitoring PFAS in drinking water

Member States must now monitor PFAS levels in drinking water to ensure compliance with EU limit values under the Drinking Water Directive. Companies are required to report exceedances of the limit values, incidents, and any granted derogations.

It is the first time that systematic monitoring of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in drinking water is being implemented in the EU. The announcement that the new rules had entered into force, was made on the website of the Directorate-General for Environment on 12 January. “If the limit values are exceeded, Member States must take action to reduce the level of PFAS and protect public health, while also informing the public. These measures may include closing contaminated wells, adding treatment steps to remove PFAS, or restricting the use of drinking water supplies for as long as the exceedance continues”, stated the European Commission on its website.

New standards

The rules that entered into force on 12 January stem from the revision of the European Drinking Water Directive in 2020. Since then, Member States have been required to transpose the directive into national water legislation. The new rules stipulate that drinking water may contain no more than 0.5 micrograms of PFAS per litre. For twenty specific PFAS substances, the total combined concentration may not exceed 0.1 micrograms per litre.

Rules and tools in place

According to European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy Jessika Roswall PFAS pollution is a growing concern for drinking water across Europe. “With harmonised limits and mandatory monitoring now in force, Member States have the rules and tools to swiftly detect and address PFAS in order to protect public health.”

Reporting

In a technical document, the European Commission has set standard analytical methods for PFAS monitoring, both for the total sum of all PFAS substances and for the sum parameter covering the twenty specific substances. It is hard to measure PFAS in drinking water as they consist of a large number of individual compounds with typically low concentrations. Conventional drinking water treatment processes, such as coagulation, flocculation, air stripping, ozonation, chlorination and rapid sand filtration, are ineffective in removing PFAS from water.

Pollution widespread in Europe

The European Environment Agency (EEA) supports the new regulation by collecting information from Member States, analysing and reporting data, and helping to turn monitoring into knowledge for action. On the EEA website, a map made by the French newspaper Le Monde is published showing all known PFAS contaminated areas. It shows that the problem is widespread across the EU Member States.

Treatment of PFAS polluted drinking water

According to the EEA it is complicated to produce healthy drinking water once it is contaminated with PFAS. “One possible solution to achieve low enough concentrations of pollutants is to dilute drinking water with water from other sources. Some more novel technologies also exist and are currently being developed. For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Drinking Water Treatability Database gives an overview of effective technologies for reducing PFAS in drinking water and includes activated carbon adsorption, ion exchange resins and high-pressure membranes, such as nanofiltration or reverse osmosis”, as stated on the EEA website.