📋 Tender Overview
Amendments to the Water Act will enter into force transposing the European Unions Drinking Water Directive. While until now the drinking water operator and the Health Board checked the water quality from the tap end in the future the quality risks of drinking water must be assessed and their control throughout the water supply chain must be planned starting from the catchment area or supply area of the abstraction point to the end of the tap. The aim of the amendments is to reduce the risks to health and the environment associated with the supply of drinking water and to ensure safe drinking water for the entire population.A risk-based drinking water safety assessment will allow water suppliers and the state to focus on those hazards that exist in a particular area in the future. In addition drinking water operators and the state will have to provide consumers with even more information about the quality and treatment of drinking water in the future said Ramon Nahkur an adviser in the Public Health Department of the Ministry of Social Affairs. The aim is to increase consumer confidence in tap water in order to reduce unsolicited water purification plastic production for bottled water waste generation and thereby save the environment.The change concerns about 600 water suppliers including companies private individuals non-profit associations and cooperatives which serve 1355 water mains under state supervision in Estonia. In order to simplify the risk assessment the Ministry of the Environment is commissioning a hydrogeological survey of nearly 700 water supply systems which defines the exact boundaries of the feeding areas of the water intake points and compiles their descriptions. For this it is important that the coordinates of the wells are correct.The Health Board will soon turn to drinking water handlers so that the handlers check the coordinates of their wells in the Estonian nature information system ADVANTAGE in a timely manner. In the event that the drinking water operator does not check the coordinates of the well in a timely manner and later it turns out that the coordinates were actually incorrect in the register and the well is located in a completely different location the water company will have to make the determination of the feeding area at its own expense said Leena Albrecht head of the environmental health department at the health board. Therefore we ask all drinking water handlers to check the coordinates of their wells in EELIS. The Health Board will also send separate instructions on this to all other operators in the near future.In order to simplify risk assessment and risk management the state also plans to develop a web-based application that will allow water suppliers to assess potential risks and threats to the quality of drinking water arising from the catchment area or supply area and the water supply system in the future and to plan appropriate measures to control the risks. The Health Board determines the priority public water consumption sites where risk assessments must also be carried out e.g. hospitals educational and welfare institutions accommodation establishments etc.The amendments to the act also specify the responsibilities of local governments in improving access to drinking water. This means that a local government unit must identify people on its territory who do not have access to drinking water and inform them of the possibilities of connecting to the public water supply system or of alternative options for obtaining drinking water. One possible measure envisaged is the installation of public water taps.In addition the upcoming implementing act of the Water Act will update both the water quality indicators and their limit values in total eight new chemical and microbiological parameters will have to be determined in drinking water in addition to the current ones such as endocrine disruptors pharmaceutical residues so-called perpetual chemicals PFASs and microplastics among others. The presence of these substances will have to be monitored by the water supplier in the future on the basis of the conclusions of the risk assessment both in the catchment area and in the water supply system.The amendments to the Water Act also establish minimum requirements for materials in contact with drinking water water treatment chemicals and filter material. In order to reduce water losses water leaks in the large water supply systems of the cities of Tallinn Tartu and Narva which supply water to more than 10000 m3 per day andor more than 50000 people will have to be assessed in the future on the basis of a new methodology uniformly regulated in the European Union.
