2024-01-15 15:47:20
It is their ‘legal duty of care’, yet provinces, water boards and municipalities still do far too little to protect drinking water sources, according to the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT). Drinking water does not always come first in the choices that provinces have to make between nature, agriculture and housing, the ILT notes.
It is therefore becoming less and less self-evident that water comes out of the tap. There is more demand for water due to a growing population and more economic activity. The ten drinking water companies in the Netherlands already sometimes have to say no to companies that need ‘industrial water’. They also do not have enough suitable sources for all ten to maintain a 10 percent reserve stock for an unexpected increase in use.
The provinces do not grant a permit or grant it too late for new sources or expansion of water extraction areas, writes the ILT, which supervises the extraction and supply of water from the tap, in a ‘signal report’ that Minister Mark Harbers sent to the House of Representatives on Monday. Chamber has sent. The minister shares the concern regarding this, he writes.
‘Governments are failing’
The RIVM warned in April last year that a structural shortage of drinking water might arise from 2030. A month later, the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure added a warning regarding water quality. As a result, drinking water sources are also contaminated and drinking water companies have to purify more intensively. In both cases, local authorities fall short, the ILT writes in its report.
The Association of Drinking Water Companies (Vewin) is pleased with the ILT report. The companies have been warning for some time that they can no longer meet the obligation to connect new homes to the water supply everywhere and that they are drawing on their reserves. In dry summers, permits for pumping groundwater are exceeded. Vewin is working with the provincial consultation body IPO on an action program 2023-2030 to increase the production capacity for drinking water. Minister Harbers, together with the ILT, is pushing for more speed.
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