As part of the European Union's Green Week event in Brussels, Euronews science correspondent Jeremy Wilks quizzed experts about water pollution, droughts, and floods and asked when we will wise up about water.
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00:00Hello, and welcome to this special programme featuring highlights of our latest debate
00:08here from EU Green Week in Brussels, asking if it's time to wise up about water.
00:14We know that water pollution is the number one concern for Europeans, according to the
00:19latest Eurobarometer poll, and we've been taking your questions and putting them to
00:23our panel of experts, and here are some of the highlights.
00:28Let me introduce the panellists.
00:30I'm pleased to welcome Florica Finkhuijer, the Director General for Environment at the
00:36European Commission, Henk Ovinck, the Executive Director for the Global Commission on the
00:40Economics of Water, and Arno Veloto, the CEO of Veolia Water Technologies.
00:46Thanks very much for being with us on this panel.
00:48We've got a great set of questions that we've had from our audience coming in.
00:53Let's get started with the polling that recently came out from the European Commission, which
00:57found that pollution was the number one concern for Europeans.
01:01In fact, 69% of them said that that was what they were worried about when it came to water.
01:07Florica, are Europeans right to be concerned about water quality and about pollution?
01:14I think every citizen is always concerned and should be concerned about the health and
01:19the well-being and also the economic state.
01:22That's perfectly right.
01:24Now, when I compare it to the global situation, we are a little bit privileged.
01:29We have a very solid, very wide framework of laws.
01:36We have really seen that because of the Bicing Water Directive, you are now, when I compare
01:41it to my childhood, you can go and swim in certain areas and we have an app and you can
01:46look whether or not you can safely, without any exposure to diseases, swim because of
01:51bacteria or non-bacteria.
01:53We have the Drinking Water Directive, we have the Urban Wastewater Directive, and we
01:57have upped these in order to also meet the new concerns because there are new concerns
02:03due to microplastics, new types of pollutants that enter the water.
02:08We are highly industrialised, obviously there are new challenges and we have to adapt our
02:14legislation to these new challenges.
02:17What you're talking about is kind of we're cleaning up from the 20th century, but now
02:20we've got 21st century concerns as well.
02:23Henke, are Europeans right to be concerned about pollution?
02:26Yes, they are.
02:27Water affects our health, our human health, our health for our kids that we want to bring
02:33up in a healthy environment, but also health for our food systems and the combination with
02:40industrialisation, pollution, forever chemicals, medicines in our water, plastics and microplastics.
02:49The image in our minds is there's all kinds of junk in our water, is that actually true
02:53though?
02:54Basically it's mostly for me how we are going to manage it as citizens, as industries, as
03:01a whole.
03:02You've got some fine Brussels tap water there, should I be worried about that?
03:06I don't think so, no.
03:09But is there stuff in there that you'd actually ultimately like to take out, Henke?
03:13You have to really distinct the water that's coming from your tap and the surface water
03:17and your ground water.
03:19Totally different conditions there.
03:21I think we're very good with technology and regulation to really protect our citizens
03:26for drinking pollutants, but it doesn't mean that our environment is not at risk and with
03:31that at a certain point also you're drinking water.
03:34But right now I should not be concerned about the water I drink because we have regulations
03:38in place, European and per country.
03:40For the last few decades there's a ton of rules that have come in.
03:43This is one of the goods which is the most controlled in terms of sanitaries and health,
03:50it's the most controlled goods that you are eating and drinking.
03:54Let me give you a question that we got from one of our audience members actually, because
04:00I think it's helpful to hear different voices in the conversation.
04:03This one comes from Peter Elson, who's the founder of Canal It Up, he actually campaigns
04:09for water quality here in Brussels.
04:11This is his question.
04:13Hello, my name is Peter Elson, I'm the founder of Canal It Up, and here is my question.
04:18What could be a reason for Brussels to get everybody behind a water quality story to
04:24really end sewage overflows into the Brussels waterways?
04:28And he's particularly concerned about sewage going into the waterways, the rivers, etc.,
04:34which is to do with the way that the drainage system is set up.
04:37Arno, can you quickly kind of sketch out how that works?
04:40Because basically when it rains very heavily you get these overflows, right?
04:43Yeah, it really depends on the way the drainage system was set up.
04:47You have city water, you have combined sewer system when you are getting water from households
04:53and waste water from households, and also rainy water, which are combined.
04:56And then when it's raining too much, then yes, you have overflows.
05:00And that happens in Brussels today.
05:02That might happen in Brussels today, and those overflows, then the question is, how are you
05:06able to treat them, or which quantity of water are you able to treat?
05:12Because what is interesting with rainwater is treating the first stage of the rainwater,
05:16which is the heavy polluted water, when you are on the street, and then the water which
05:21is washing the street.
05:23But then after that, you have somehow clean water to discharge.
05:27So this is finding the right proportion.
05:30It isn't like that everywhere, though, Henk, right?
05:32No, it's not like everywhere.
05:34But in the combination of what we see happening, events become more extreme.
05:38So we have longer periods of droughts and more heat, and that means water quality actually
05:43goes down, because the water quantity goes down, and with heat, water quality goes down.
05:48And then also here in Brussels, the city is heating up.
05:51In the combination of these massive cloudbursts, all of a sudden putting so much pressure on
05:56the system that it starts to burst.
05:58And you have to rethink that if you combine stormwater with sewage water and your system
06:05in a city that is a hardened surface like here, you always have a problem.
06:09So you have to think about nature-based type of solutions where you start to capture that
06:13water before it ends up in your sewage systems.
06:16I can give you an example from Belgium, which really made people change.
06:20That was a big flood.
06:21I really was very pleased that I was in Wallonia not so long ago, and they handed over to me
06:27a shack of representing one million trees that had been planted after the flood, and
06:33also hectares, hectares of hedges, a nature-based solution in order to capture, to keep the
06:39soil and slow down the water.
06:42It's really a nature-based solution against disaster risk, and action as prevention, but
06:49also in the floods.
06:51So that was unfortunately, as often the case, a catastrophe, a disaster triggering people
06:58to rethink.
06:59All of us want to have great quality water.
07:00You've already mentioned PFAS.
07:02We know that's one of the things out there, these kind of forever chemicals, 10,000-odd
07:06of these things that seem to be everywhere, not just in the water.
07:09But you've also got antibiotics, you've got hormones, you've got industrial chemicals,
07:13you've got cyanotoxins, you've got nanomaterials, a real smorgasbord of stuff that I don't really
07:20want in my water.
07:21Technically, Arnaud, can you clean those things out?
07:25Before we start making rules and everything, can you actually get rid of them?
07:28Technically, we need to do three things in different stages.
07:32The first one is to be able to monitor and to measure.
07:35That's the first thing that we need to do.
07:38And that's what's coming on with PFAS.
07:39We are discovering PFAS every day, measuring it.
07:44Because we're doing more monitoring.
07:45Because we are doing more monitoring.
07:46So doing more monitoring is getting to know better what's inside our water, what's inside
07:50our environment.
07:51And then while we are measuring, we have the technologies to remove this from the water.
07:57And then we will have to treat this pollution.
07:59But the technologies to remove this from the water and to provide safe water to citizens
08:04are existing.
08:05Well, at the moment, there are discussions about PFAS.
08:08Can you kind of update us on that, the situation at the moment?
08:11On the PFAS directly, we had five states who were asking our chemical agency, the ECHA,
08:18about a ban.
08:20And that was, I think it was Denmark, it was Sweden, it was Germany, it was Netherlands
08:23and Norway.
08:25And they have put that request forward.
08:27Now, ECHA is an independent agency.
08:30They are analyzing it.
08:31They have made a consultation where many have reacted and said, well, I need PFAS because
08:39of my industrial processes.
08:41Others have said, oh, but here I have already alternatives for it.
08:44So based on that, ECHA will make its opinion.
08:48Then the opinion comes to the Commission.
08:50Commission will have to decide.
08:52That is only seen for next year.
08:54So it's a very lengthy process.
08:57Let's move on and talk about agriculture.
08:59You had some big protests here in Brussels and other parts of Europe as well by farmers
09:05earlier this year.
09:06We know that that was politically a pretty hot topic.
09:09We had a question from Jerry McAvilly from Friends of the Earth in Ireland asking how
09:14can EU agricultural policy be reformed to support farmers who are improving water quality
09:19and delivering environmental benefits?
09:23Henk, is this really something that everybody should be concerned about?
09:27Are there good solutions to try and fix things?
09:30And how do you encourage the farmers who are doing a good job?
09:33Yeah, we should be worried about this.
09:35Second, what you should not do is say, single-house farmers say you're to blame.
09:40Single farmer is not to blame for the pollutants then to end up in our environment.
09:45It's a system around it that we really have to change.
09:47That's the thing.
09:48I've talked to agriculture experts who are saying that the farmers are water users, but
09:52they're also producers of food, of course, and so it's a whole system.
09:56What's the industry point of view on this one?
09:58Wastewater and especially wastewater coming from food industry is very valuable.
10:04And this is something we should not forget.
10:05We are trying to remove things from the wastewater so that it does not affect our environment,
10:10but the things that we are removing are valuable.
10:13Florica, can I bring you in?
10:14How do we encourage the best farmers to do the great job?
10:17Absolutely.
10:1870% of the water is abstracted for farming globally, right?
10:23It's not so different.
10:24It's a huge demand, right?
10:25It's a huge demand.
10:26Because for food and for food production, right?
10:29But globally we see, and that is also true for Europe, we will have facing more and more
10:34drought, right?
10:35So the idea of how to reuse water in irrigation for farming is quite important because water
10:42is so precious.
10:43I mean, whether it's rainwater that you capture, whether it's a water that you reuse, water
10:48efficiency first is really what we have to think in all our approaches.
10:52And we have to think holistically.
10:53And there you can do a lot.
10:55And by the way, if I may say so, also a lot of third countries who have been faced perhaps
11:00with drought earlier on, they have systems and we can also learn from each other there.
11:05You talked about irrigation, water comes from the sky.
11:08We never think about where it comes from.
11:11So this is this amazing thing, which is water, that's why I'm so passionate about, is that
11:17we think it comes somewhere from the ocean, 60% of the rain from the sky comes from land.
11:24That land, if we look at Europe, is under threat.
11:27So we pollute it, our biodiversity is in decline.
11:31So land use policy and so therefore economic development are critically linked to the fact
11:37that we're depending on irrigation for our food system.
11:40So we're also talking about the water cycle.
11:43We know that overarching all of this is climate change, which isn't going to go away as a
11:47problem, no matter how many times we try, it's not going away.
11:51And we have got to the point where people are saying we've broken the water cycle.
11:57We dented it, massively.
12:00What do we do?
12:01What's the, what's the, I mean, you can't regulate your way out of that one.
12:05Well, you can.
12:07It's not a regulation.
12:08Not a regulation, but I mean, I mean, I would already, already start by saying, if you only
12:12look at climate change, which is very abstract, I mean, the first thing is now to stabilise
12:18global warming.
12:19Which we're doing a particularly bad job of doing at the moment.
12:23But I would like to come back on nature-based solutions and the doubling of nature.
12:28Because when we talked just a moment ago on the, on the, on the agriculture cycle, and
12:33we have a whole cycle of water.
12:35We have the blue water, we have the green water, which are the forest, the soil and
12:39everything else.
12:40But we have the waste water, the grey water, we have other types of water, which we can
12:44also put together on how we can use it better, more efficiently.
12:49I like very much what Hank said.
12:50We need a systemic, but a very integrated approach.
12:54You have to think of why can I not go for win-win solutions?
12:58How can I not use, I mean, change the floodplains, but also go for agricultural use and other
13:06things in urban planning?
13:09So I think, unfortunately, the world has become more complex, true.
13:14But that means also we have to think a bit more in a more broader systemic way.
13:19And if we do so, I think we can really go for solutions.
13:22What I, what I like to really project is, it's not that it is impossible.
13:28And that's why I'm also a little bit allergic of saying, oh, it's just climate change, because
13:32that is de-responsibilizing.
13:33I mean, you can do yourself something on nature degradation.
13:38You can do yourself something on pollution.
13:44Can I just bring in another question that we had, which was an unusual idea to me, honestly,
13:49when I heard it.
13:50But it was a question we had from Charlene Alberici, who is from something called the
13:54Fluctuations Festival.
13:55And this is her question.
13:56Hello, I am Charlene from the Fluctuations team, the first flood festival in Europe.
13:57I wanted to know if, in order to preserve water and achieve our climate goals by 2030,
13:58we should not endow our rivers, our rivers, our seas and oceans with a specific legal
13:59status.
14:00So a kind of legal protection for your rivers.
14:01Not quite sure what that would be, Hank.
14:02What are we talking about here?
14:03There are countries around the world that are not only considering that, but are actually
14:04doing that.
14:05The Dominican Republic already had nature in their constitution to give it a right.
14:29And they're working on including rivers as a specific element of that.
14:34All these questions about giving a river's body a legal entity, it's really raising awareness
14:42on how much we have an impact on them and how much we, on the way we are developing
14:49and we are arming those natural resources.
14:53Again, I think it is amazing giving a river a right.
14:57So I think it depends really where it is needed or not, but the awareness or the ownership
15:04idea of like, I take care, I give you now an example of something very completely different.
15:09In France, there's this idea of adopting a river for school classes, which I found is
15:14a very, very nice and very good idea because you create ownership and that you can do and
15:20scale up.
15:21Yeah.
15:22So giving legal status might be very important in some cases.
15:27Let's talk about desalination.
15:28It's a bit of a keyword when it comes to conversations about water because it's used in many parts
15:35of the world.
15:36Here in Europe, in Catalonia, we have it going on at the moment.
15:40A lot of the water in Barcelona, if you're going there, is coming from desalination.
15:44But also they've got recycling and regeneration of water where they're pumping it back upstream
15:49and then taking it back out again.
15:50Are those appropriate solutions considering that we've got climate change coming?
15:55We know that even here you can have a drought where it seems to rain all of the time.
15:58It can still happen.
16:00Hank, is desalination something that should be part of our playbook when it comes to dealing
16:05with water problems?
16:07Yes.
16:08And there's a reason for that.
16:09It starts with the question where and why.
16:12If I'm in an arid region around the world where there's no water around, desalination
16:17in a very sustainable and an over the way is part of the solution.
16:21If I'm on a small island state and my freshwater bulb is becoming saline and there's no water
16:27around, I need it for my survival.
16:29But you really have to tailor it and you need the innovations and you have to make sure
16:34that whatever you take out of that water doesn't end up in our environment.
16:38So it kills us all.
16:39Arnaud?
16:40No, no.
16:41It's...
16:42We...
16:43Desal is definitely part of the playbook.
16:46Once again, for us, it's the last of the solution, meaning that we need to use it when
16:52we have to use it.
16:54We have done massive work within Veolia in order to reduce the impact of desalination.
17:00We're speaking about electrical consumption.
17:02We've reduced it drastically during the last 10 years, improving membrane technology, putting
17:08energy recovery device, or nothing, recovering as much as we can as energy.
17:13And coming up to the brine, we are now monitoring how we can reuse brine, recreate salt with
17:18brine, et cetera, and monitoring the impact of rejecting this brine into the environment.
17:22So there are many solutions in the playbook, which can be guided by a global framework.
17:27But coming back to that, it's really on the territory that the solution needs to be done.
17:32Even in terms of reuse, reusing water is completely part of the solution.
17:37But if you are reusing too much water at the outlet of a wastewater treatment plant, this
17:42has a huge impact on the river in which you were rejecting your water before.
17:46And what's going to happen to the cities which are below you in this system?
17:51What's going to happen in terms of concentration of pollution within this river and the biodiversity
17:56within the river?
17:57So this is really a holistic approach that we need to take.
18:00There is a full playbook of solution.
18:02And then you need to define clearly what solution fits the problematic, the challenges you are
18:08facing in your territories.
18:11And another question, finally, that we've had from a viewer.
18:15This is Thibaut Cocque, who's a schoolteacher from Paris, who's asking, do you consider
18:20water to be a common good, basically something that sort of should belong to everyone?
18:25Florica, what's the point of view on that?
18:28Well, it is a common good.
18:30It's also actually a global good.
18:32But then if you combine that, that gives different responsibilities.
18:35I mean, everybody thinks water is there, at least in Europe.
18:38I mean, in other countries, they would not.
18:40But here, water has no real price.
18:43It's probably the price only what we're paying is for the surface, but not for the water
18:47itself.
18:48The context of his question is these big reservoirs being built by agro-industrial organizations
18:55in France who are hoarding the water.
18:57I understand that.
18:58That's the word that he used when he was talking to me about it.
18:59And that is coming for the question like, when you look at Europe, you will realize
19:04that it's also not something that we can just only see in the national context.
19:08We have river basins, which are going across borders.
19:12So you cannot just say I do it on my own.
19:16It's just a public or national good.
19:18So water is really going everywhere and therefore has no borders.
19:22If you look at the hydrological cycle as a global common good, yes, at the public good,
19:27you have to regulate it on a national level.
19:29And here in the European Union, of course, on the European level.
19:32I mean, we have we all know that we have resource depletion and we have scarcity of resources.
19:37There will be a run on resources.
19:39Now what is the most important resource for all?
19:42It's water.
19:43Well, that's all we have time for.
19:45But you can watch the full one hour debate on Euronews.com.
19:49And please let us know your views on water quality issues where you live using our Euronews
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