2023-11-10 16:36:28
Update
November 10, 2023
17:36
Zuhal Demir sent a first letter in March 2022 in which she reported that drinking water standards were not being respected in Flemish areas that import drinking water from other regions.
In January 2023, the Flemish Minister of the Environment, Zuhal Demir, sent a letter to his Walloon and Brussels counterparts in order to warn them of problems with drinking water in Halle, distributed by Vivaqua, RTL and La Libre Belgique reported this Friday. A letter which implies that Céline Tellier, but also Christie Morreale, Alain Maron and Elke Van den Brandt, were aware of the situation.
“We responded on several occasions to Zuhal Demir that we were open to consultation and collaboration,” affirmed this Friday followingnoon, with letters in support, the Walloon Minister of the Environment, Céline Tellier. “We informed her of the monitoring in the 650 water distribution zones. We also reiterated the request for a ban on PFAS in Europe as already indicated at the European Environment Council on October 6, 2021,” added Céline Tellier.
The latter actually sent a letter to her Flemish counterpart on February 24, 2023. “Your letters of January 30 and February 20 reached me and caught my full attention,” she wrote, emphasizing that the decree of the Walloon government setting in particular the new standards and the modalities of surveillance of water distribution zones “is still under discussion”. “I am of course open to collaboration between our administrations and the main water producers concerning the management of PFAS in drinking water in Belgium and an exchange of data on the concentrations observed and the contaminated sites as soon as they are objectivized”, continues the minister. Her second letter is dated of July 26. The Tellier cabinet reiterates that it will “willingly” participate in the consultation initiative proposed by Minister Demir.
The Walloon Minister of Health, Christie Morreale, also confirmed, this Friday, having received a letter from the Flemish Minister of the Environment, Zuhal Demir in January 2023. “The subject of this letter concerned a request for consultation on environmental data related to water quality, for which follow-up was provided by the Walloon Minister of the Environmentas the latter specified,” indicated Minister Morreale’s office.
Request for regular meetings
In the document in question, which De Standaard and then Le Soir have already echoed recently, the Flemish minister refers to a first letter dating from March 2022 in which it already informs that the reference values of EFSA – the European food safety authority – for drinking water are still not respected in areas where Flanders imports drinking water from other regions.
She then assures that “a recent emergency notification indicates that the drinking water in Halle, supplied by Vivaqua, contains PFAS levels above EFSA reference valuesbut also considerably higher than the future European standards of the amended European Drinking Water Directive.
Zuhal Demir finally asks Ministers Tellier and Maron tohold regular meetings to discuss PFAS levels in drinking water.
According to an RTBF investigation broadcast Wednesday evening, analyzes of distribution water in Chièvres showed that some 12,000 inhabitants of the region consumed water contaminated with PFAS exceeding the tolerable dose by 5 times set by the European Food Safety Authority.
In 2021, a scandal broke out around PFAS rejected by l’usine 3M in the province of Antwerp in 2021, when the Flemish government and the Antwerp authorities were aware of the health risk since 2017.
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