2022
More drought and more cooperation among Flanders drinking water companies
More drought and more cooperation among Flanders drinking water companies
Flanders suffers even more from the drought than the Netherlands. After a wet 2021, a dry 2022 followed. The water quality and particularly PFAS were also hot topics. Bert Rousseau of water-link and Tom Diez of De Watergroep report how this was dealt with. "The Flemish drinking water companies are cooperating on a climate-robust system."
In Flanders, there are fewer rivers, lakes and water buffers than in the Netherlands. "This is why it pinches a little more," says Tom Diez. "We are more vulnerable and more quickly see a reaction to drought. We therefore need to arm ourselves well against the extreme consequences of climate change."
As Strategic Planning Manager at De WaterGroep, Diez is responsible for guaranteeing a safe and reliable water supply in both the short and long term. He analyses what sources the company can use in the future and how these can be managed as sustainably as possible. Are additional sources and infrastructure needed and how much water needs to be stored?
Both summer and autumn in 2022 were very dry in Flanders, which caused very low water levels lasting until early 2023. "We always assume that we will see a low water level in the summer," says Diez. "But remarkably enough the rivers also had an absolute minimum level in February 2023. It seems that the issue of low water might no longer be limited only to the summer."
Due to this, Diez remarks, you have an ever-greater risk of conflicts with other water users. "We are beginning to see and feel this seriously, because others like farmers and industrial companies need the water as well. It's rather difficult to decide who gets first go."
One of the themes that stands out for Bert Rousseau in 2022 is the fact that, in this year, the Drought Commission took concrete decisions for the first time to ensure that enough drinking water was available. He is the head of the laboratory at water-link. As process technologist, he is also responsible for the database of results from samples from the Meuse for monitoring the water quality and for research to produce drinking water. Together with his colleagues, he also watches out for threats such as new chemicals.
The Flanders government set up the Drought Commission in 2018; it is a collaboration including water managers and drinking water companies. The Commission maps out threatening problems. The members can provide advice and take measures to save water and to employ the remaining water stocks optimally. "In 2021, for the first time, we made clear agreements with the Drought Commission, but these were not necessary that year because it was a very wet summer," says Rousseau. "However, the summer of 2022 was exceptionally dry, just as in 2018 and 2019."
All the Flanders drinking water companies support the Drought Commission and cooperate well in it, emphasises Diez. "We are dependent on each other as regards water availability, so it's critical there are clear agreements and that we speak with a single voice."
Companies and inhabitants in Flanders for example received the advice to be sparing with water in the summer of 2022. This advice was well taken: the consumption in this period was less than that in the summers of 2018 and 2019.
There was also a hosepipe ban for part of the year in certain areas; no water could be extracted from channels, streams or rivers for agricultural land, to fill ponds, or to water gardens or sports fields. The water sector was not convinced such a prohibition would help. "You often see that after the prohibition is announced and before it enters into force, everyone rapidly starts watering," says Rousseau. "Meaning that we can end up in trouble even quicker."
Another example of a water-saving measure in 2022 was the decision to have vessels that need to go through a lock with a height difference between two canals go through with multiple vessels simultaneously. This way, less water is lost on the way towards port.
A continual water-saving measure from the Flanders government is the obligation to collect rainwater from newly built houses. This has advantages, Rousseau considers. "Only, this storage runs dry after long periods of drought. To span longer periods of drought, I think more infiltration is a better measure."
So, to use the subsoil as a buffer: try to get the groundwater levels as high as possible during wetter periods by not letting all the surface water just run away into the sea. In Belgium, perhaps more than in the Netherlands, the focus has historically been on the drainage of excess rainwater to prevent flooding. Rousseau: "We now have to transition and try to retain that water as much as possible."
The Albert Canal management also took water-saving measures in the summer of 2022, reports Rousseau. "This was the first time we had really low water levels. We feared a shortage, and made agreements about the use of buffers, so that we had to extract less water from the canal.” Water-link gave the situation a 'code yellow', which means raised alertness, and this had a direct impact on all the other water companies.
Diez of De Watergroep endorses this. He has the impression that the Flanders drinking water companies cooperate more than those in the Netherlands. “We want to jointly make our drinking water system more robust,” he states. “We in Flanders have indeed made this change of course in recent years.” Rousseau adds: “In the past, we only entered into consultation once there was a problem; now we do this in advance.”
The drinking water companies make agreements with each other and use each other's sources if necessary. For this, a number of major connections have been constructed between the water distribution systems and various others are still in construction. Drinking water systems are also built and operated jointly. Diez: "While there is sufficient surface water, we all try together to use it maximally. And in the interim, we save all that groundwater and supplement it for dry periods." This cooperation is possibly necessary in Flanders due to the drought, but he also notes: "This is of course also the most efficient way of working, for your customers as well. Everyone gains improvement in this way."
Buffers, legislation and unconventional sources
Flanders has fewer water buffers than the Netherlands and is constructing more buffers, states Rousseau, because the expectation is that they will become more necessary due to drought. "Previously, the buffers were only needed in case of quality issues, not for water shortages."
The Flanders government is also drafting policy to better protect the surface water against harmful discharges, Diez states. He is optimistic that good legislation will emerge from this in the short term, because the Flanders government is behind it and the drinking water companies are involved in the discussions.
A number of Flanders drinking water companies are currently jointly investigating several possibilities to use less conventional sources, continues Diez. For example, water from the sea is being looked at. However, it costs a great deal of energy to make drinking water from this.
"For this reason, a drinking water production centre is being built where fresh water, brine and also salt water can be treated. So that fresh water can be used if there is enough of it. In extreme emergency you can then use seawater and in this way as few water streams as possible are lost." Other investigations of Flanders drinking water companies are looking at the possibilities to make drinking water from wastewater.
Apart from the water quantity, the water quality also featured heavily in the news in Flanders in 2022. Rousseau cites the environmental scandal around the Oosterweel project to extend the Antwerp Ring that came to light in 2021 and has received a lot of attention in the press. Large quantities of PFOS, a toxic substance in the PFAS family (poly and perfluoroalkyl substances) were discovered in the soil; these had been discharged into the Port of Antwerp by the 3M factory in Zwijndrecht.
"PFAS is a similar story as asbestos has been in the past," says Rousseau. "It has been used for years in very many applications, and its harmfulness was not properly studied. Thanks to this dossier, PFAS in Flanders has become a hot topic and that has rapidly increased attention to the problem all over Europe."
The PFAS issue is enormously involved – no one is entirely sure how we should deal with it, emphasises Diez. In the issuing of permits for new projects for example, because he says: "PFAS is so widely distributed, it’s present everywhere. They are not called forever chemicals for nothing. So, how for example do we ensure that all projects and the entire economy don’t come to a standstill? Do we insist everywhere that you have to remove it, but with what technique and where do we leave it then?" he asks himself. "Flanders will need to be introspective in its permits policy. These are very difficult discussions and they are something that everyone in Europe will be wrestling with soon. All the Member States are looking into this."
He also mentions the fact that PFAS standards appeared in the revised European Drinking Water Directive for the first time in 2020. "These standards impose very low limits, which we will also have to comply with in 2026. And given the fact that PFAS is widely distributed and very difficult to remove, it's a big challenge for us to remove these substances."
Both emphasise that the precautionary principle must be better applied for new substances. In other words, it must first be clear how harmful newly developed substances are before they are allowed to be discharged. Diez: "It’s important to already take account of these new substances right from their development." Besides discharges from businesses, he also mentions medication residues that get into the water via the sewerage system, and suggests for example starting to use more green or sustainable medicines. "So it doesn't prove afterwards that you are confronted with a big problem, as we now are with PFAS.
Rousseau adds: "We must know how hazardous such a substance is, and also how our drinking water production centres should deal with it. Are these substances that are very easy to remove or not? Before they are produced and sold, we need to know this."
In case of illegal discharges, insufficient action is taken in Flanders, Diez considers. "Sometimes it takes ages, or matters are just left to slide. Certainly in dry periods, enforcement must be stricter, although the legal context doesn’t always make that possible currently. I have the impression that this is dealt with more strictly in the Netherlands." Rousseau shakes his head: "The drinking water companies in the Netherlands also ask for quicker intervention, I understand; the government there too is considered too lax sometimes."
The Flanders drinking water companies, in comparison to those in the Netherlands, are indeed more involved in the permits policy, both agree. Rousseau: "So if new discharges are introduced in protected areas for drinking water, drinking water companies are contacted for advice. This is very important."
In Flanders, the supervisory authority, the Flanders Environmental Agency, also looks more closely at what effect a substance has on the drinking water rather than at the source, the quality of the water before it is purified into drinking water. "If there are substances present that they know our water production centres can remove easily, less attention is paid to this than if it’s clear these substances will present a problem. We don't have the procedure with exemptions that the Dutch work with.”
Cooperation across the borders
Both the interviewees emphasize that more international cooperation is needed to better protect the water of the Meuse as a source of drinking water. Rousseau considers that water treaties among the various European Member States will become much more important, to ensure that the region continues to have enough water. "Such a treaty already exists between Flanders and the Netherlands, but we don't have one yet with Wallonia or France. And if only a little amount of water comes from the upstream part in the basin, both Flanders and the Netherlands will increasingly face shortages."
The European Directives are well formulated, Diez considers, but in practice how the Member States and regions deal with these differs. "When defining policy, the reasoning is still too much from the perspective of each Member State separately rather than at the level of river basins. If the Meuse or another water source is not used for drinking water in a certain Member State there is often less attention to it." This is why the protection of the Meuse is dealt with more consciously in the Netherlands and Flanders than in France, where less use is made of this river as a drinking water source.
The cooperation between the Flanders and Netherlands drinking water companies, as in the RIWA-Meuse context, is in any event extremely important, they both emphasise. Joint research into new and upcoming substances for example. "It's good that we are doing this jointly so we can share the efforts." Tracking down contaminations jointly also proves highly beneficial. "For example, we have discovered where certain discharges come from in recent months."