The second phase review of UK environmental standards and conditions for the Water Framework Directive (WFD) has now closed and summary documents published. The review has been undertaken by the WFD United Kingdom Technical Advisory Group (UKTAG) - a working group of experts drawn from the UK environment and conservation agencies – set up to provide coordinated advice to Government on technical aspects of the Directive.

The second phase review consists of three final draft Reports on the proposed UK Groundwater Classification Framework (comprising chemical and quantitative classification), the proposed environmental standards for Specific Pollutants and on the remaining proposed Surface Water Environmental Standards and Conditions.

The environmental standards are intended to support healthy communities of aquatic plants and animals, specifically:

nitrogen in estuaries and coastal waters;

phosphorus in lakes;

temperature standards for lakes, rivers, estuaries and coastal waters;

suspended solids management approach;

standards and conditions for managed flows;

standards and conditions for freshwater flow to estuaries;

a system for assessing the structure and condition of the bottom and banks of lakes;

a system for assessing the structure and condition of the beds/bottom and banks of transitional and coastal waterbodies.

All three reports also explain how the standards and conditions were derived and how they might be used to support implementation of the Directive. The UKTAG is proposing that the environment agencies use the system to decide the status of groundwater bodies, the environmental standards as triggers for further investigation and that  these investigations should decide whether the conditions for good status have been met. The standards will also be used to calculate the degree and type of action needed to achieve compliance. The environment agencies would report these results for consultation in late 2008 in the drafts of the River Basin Management Plans, with the final results included in 2009 in the Directive's first cycle of Plans.

With regard to specific pollutants, the UKTAG has proposed new standards for 9 substances to be used as Specific Pollutants under the Water Framework Directive. These are: 2,4-D, chromium; cypermethrin; diazinon; dimethoate; linuron; mecoprop; phenol; and toluene (Table 1: Part A). The UKTAG recommends that existing standards continue for 2,4-dichlorophenol, un-ionised ammonia, arsenic, chlorine, copper, cyanide, iron, permethrin and zinc and that these substances are not yet treated as Specific Pollutants for the Water Framework Directive.

Alongside the Reports, UKTAG has published summaries of the detailed comments of a range of stakeholders, including those of the water companies. The water and wastewater companies have a particular interest in how the Directive will be implemented in view of its potential impact on both financial and operational aspects of their business operations. For instance, Wessex Water expressed concern that

"there is the possibility that a new EQS for iron could limit water companies’ abilities to remove phosphorus from sewage using end of pipe ferric dosing, particularly given the tight P standards proposed in the first UKTAG report." while Water UK commented that

"Many of the proposed PNECs (predicted-no-effect-concentrations) are extremely low and, as acknowledged in the report, further evidence is required to confirm the suitability of the values for WFD purposes. We recognise that the objectives of the Directive are demanding but we do have concerns about the adoption of very tight standards which are then shown to be technically unachievable or disproportionately expensive to achieve."

UKTAG are planning to release their response to stakeholder comment and final reports in the near future.