To further reduce risks to public health and the environment from water pollution, the Commission is proposing to add 15 chemical substances to the list of 33 priority pollutants that are monitored and subject to control under EU law (list of priority substances listed in Annex X of Directive 2000/60/EC, known as the Water Framework Directive). The Commission has proposed to include a revised (second) list of priority substances, and provisions to improve the functioning of the legislation. The main features of the proposal are: 15 additional priority substances, 6 of them designated as priority hazardous substances; stricter EQS (environmental quality standards) for four existing priority substances and slightly revised EQS for three others; the designation of two existing priority substances as priority hazardous substances; the introduction of biota standards for several substances; provisions to improve the efficiency of monitoring and the clarity of reporting with regard to certain substances behaving as ubiquitous persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substances; a provision for a watch-list mechanism designed to allow targeted EU-wide monitoring of substances of possible concern to support the prioritisation process in future reviews of the priority substances list. The 15 substances are: plant-health products : aclonifen, bifenox, cypermethrin, dicofol, heptachlor, and quinoxyfen; biocidal products : cybutryne, dichlorvos, terbutryn; industrial chemical products : perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD); by-products of thermal combustion : dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs; pharmaceutical substances : 17 alphaethinylestradiol (EE2), 17 beta-etradiol (E2) and diclofenac. Discharge of six of the 15 new priority substances into water is to be phased out within 20 years.
