Archived press release

FOE defends European court action to protect UK Drinking Water

3 July 1996

Friends of the Earth (FOE) today accused the Drinking Water Inspectorate of complacency in the face of a track record of multiple failures to protect the public from polluted drinking water and gave its support for the court action by the European Commission against the UK Government over illegal levels of pesticides in UK drinking water,announced last Friday [1].

Roger Lilley, FOE's Industry and Pollution Campaigner said today:

"The 99.5% compliance figure is clearly misleading. The European Commission itself said last Friday that this type of statistic is "is not a useful figure". It is an overall average for water works and for all parameters, including (water) hardness and visual appearance. The figure of 0.5% failure does not show how much this was the result of,for instance, pesticide contamination and how large the areas are that are not in compliance."

"Over the last few years we have seen time and time again how ineffectual the Drinking Water Inspectorate has been on issues such as cryptosporidiosis. Now the Government is trying to undermine European legislation on the acceptable levels of pesticides in drinking water. Only this year the Government has rejected recommendations to instigate a comprehensive programme of lead pipe removal from the supply system."

"A rising tide of new areas of concern - new pesticides, the possibility of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the water supply and materials used to repair pipes, as well as concerns over the toxicity of materials found in cement used to make pipes, demonstrates that this is not the time for complacency or reliance on misleading statistics."

ENDS

Notes[1] Reuters Press Release "EU plans court challenge on British water quality", a legal action which follows on from that started by Friends of the Earth in 1988 and overturned in the High Court in May 1995.

Contact:Roger Lilley on 020 7566 1685 (wk) 01223 570 884 (ho)Press Enquires 020 7566 1649 (dir) http://www.foe.co.uk

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust