WG-E(4)-08-09- Draft Minutes of the 3rd Workshop on Prioritisation
EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE Institute for Health and Consumer Protection Consumer Products Safety & Quality Unit
DRAFT MINUTES
3rd WORKSHOP ON PRIORITISATION
EXPERT GROUP ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY STANDARDS (EG-EQS) – 3rd meeting JRC, ISPRA, September 5 2008 ROOM 3, BUILDING 36
Participants : Claussen Henning (DK), Ismene Jaeger (DE) , Dieter Schudoma (DE), Miriam Pardos (ES), Yvan Aujollet (FR), Vincent Bonnomet (INERIS), Alice James (FR), Caroline Moermond (NL), Theodora Ten Hulscher (NL), Lea Mrafkova (SK), Susan Londesborough (FI), Mikaela Gönczi (SE), Paul Whitehouse (UK), Helen Wilkinson (UK), Katrien Delbeke (IND), Delphine Haesaerts (IND), Romijn Kees (IND), Madalina David (DG-ENV), Klaus Daginnus, Geneviève Deviller, Ana Paya Perez, José-Manuel Zaldivar (DG JRC)
Welcome and Introduction, approval of the Agenda, Draft Minutes 2nd workshop Klaus Daginnus (KD) welcomed the participants and specified the objectives of the meeting. The draft minutes of the 2nd workshop have been adopted without any changes. ECB/UK approach presented to WG-E To inform new members of the group Genevieve Deviller (GD) presented the joint ECB/UK proposal that was submitted for consideration to the Working Group E (WG E) meeting in March 2008. In addition to the proposal for Priority setting of substances, she also provided feedback fromWG E. The proposal was based on prioritisation approaches put forward by the UK and ECB at the 2nd prioritisation workshop held in February. A tiered approach was proposed with an initial screening phase based on a scoring approach followed by a more detailed assessment for those substances identified as of priority from the screening stage. The combined ECB/UK proposal includes the following elements and steps: WG-E(4)-08-09- Draft Minutes of the 3rd Workshop on Prioritisation
EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE Institute for Health and Consumer Protection Consumer Products Safety & Quality Unit
- a universe of chemicals will be defined as a list of substances of concern for water pollutants - substances for which no exposure data are available will be considered based on hazard only. This is intended to help assess ‘emerging contaminants’ and is considered a ‘safety net’ - based on the above three lists will be generated, one based on monitoring, one based on modelling and another based on ‘emerging contaminants’ – a hazard based list - an expert judgement step is included - monitoring based list of chemicals are 1st priority to select PS - exposure modelling list of chemicals can be considered as candidates for PS or monitoring programmes - the hazard only based lists may trigger exposure assessment or monitoring The combined ECB/UK proposal was also presented at SETAC 2008. The comments of the WG-E were presented. In general members of WG-E felt they needed more information on the scoring system approach. This is dealt with in detail in a document developed by EA (UK) that it is available at the CPS&Q EG-EQS web site. In addition several other documents have now been uploaded. Presentation from DG ENV Madalina David (MD) presented the DG-ENV work programme to review the priority substances list and the EQS setting. MD reminded the group that the daughter Directive was approved on 17th June and it is expected to be published before the end of 2008. The next revision is foreseen by the end of 2010 and DG-ENV has prepared a work programme that was shown to the participants. The next revision will include a new list of priority substances (PS) together with proposals for their environmental quality standards (EQS). EQS setting cannot proceed in earnest until the new priorities have been finalised. The EQS derivation programme is therefore dependent on completion of the prioritisation work. DG-ENV explained that the parallel development of the new PS list and corresponding EQS is still intended. DG-ENV will then decide in 2009 on the best practice to generate the final PS proposal for 2010 review. Discussion centred on the question of which approach should be followed to generate the new list of priority substances and how to use the best of all existing approaches. INERIS report Vincent Bonnomet (VB) from INERIS (DG-ENV consultant) presented the draft results of the methodology proposed by INERIS for substances for which monitoring data are available in at least three member states. WG-E(4)-08-09- Draft Minutes of the 3rd Workshop on Prioritisation
EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE Institute for Health and Consumer Protection Consumer Products Safety & Quality Unit
The participants acknowledged the huge amount of work done in collecting and aggregating the monitoring data, as well as in applying a risk based approach which requires the calculation of PEC/PNECs ratios. The final ranking of PS is still to be agreed by the WG E. The report is currently out for comment with comments required by the 15th September 2008.
Some comments were provided by industry (IND): - Monitoring data for water are rich, but sometimes strange data appear like total water concentration greater than dissolved water concentration - Monitoring data are poor for sediments and biota. Therefore IND would be in favour of applying less weight to results obtained for these analytical matrices - Metals and in-organics are not part of the same prioritisation scheme. - Risk-based approach have not been applied for metals - Additional and better data would be needed in order to improve the representativeness of the final PS-list Comments on the methodology have been received from several parties. MD indicated that the deadline for comments is the 15th September and that they will be discussed at the next WG-E meeting on the 15-16 October. . UK presentation on combining the UK and ECB proposals At the 2nd prioritisation workshop it was agreed that consideration would be given as to how the UK and ECB approaches tabled at the meeting could be combined. Helen Wilkinson (HW) presented the findings arising from consideration of the two proposals. These are summarised below (a copy of the presentation is attached). The two proposals had many commonalities in terms of the key stages involved in the approach, eg ‘universe of chemicals’, assessment of exposure and hazard, review stage, identification of priority list based on a ranking algorithm. There were some differences between the approaches however, eg the ECB approach did not consider exposure and hazard in parallel and the UK approach was based on a tiered assessment incorporating a screening stage prior to a more refined assessment for those chemicals identified in the screening stage. In considering the two approaches it highlight a number of issues that need to be considered in developing a prioritisation approach and these were highlighted in the presentation as points to be considered by the workshop members in developing a prioritisation approach. WG-E(4)-08-09- Draft Minutes of the 3rd Workshop on Prioritisation
EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE Institute for Health and Consumer Protection Consumer Products Safety & Quality Unit
The overarching key stages in a prioritisation framework are very similar both between the UK and ECB approaches being considered but other existing prioritisation methodologies. The methods used within each of these stages however can differ. Exposure for example can involve use of monitoring and/or modelling data. If monitoring data used there are numerous approaches by which the data can be analysed for use and if modelling is used there are numerous models available for use. Therefore although the key stages are the same there are various approaches that can be used at each stage. Choice of approach can influence the approach used at the next stage but also the overall outcome of the prioritisation approach. Some of the considerations that need to be made at each of the key stages in a prioritisation framework were mentioned in the presentation. In considering the way forward for developing a prioritisation approach need to be aware of the different options available and identify the preferred approaches. In doing this need to learn from approaches previously used, eg COMMPS and INERIS but also, where appropriate, other existing prioritisation schemes, eg OSPAR. Emerging chemicals are a key concern and therefore the approach developed needs to be able to take such substances into account. Development of an approach needs to take into account the requirements/objectives of the prioritisation approach, the scientific validity but also the practicality of the approach, e.g. in terms of costs and resources as some methods can be time consuming.
Summary of the discussion and next steps The participants agreed that the best practice to select PS is to use elements of existing approaches, eg the INERIS, UK, ECB/UK-methodology, playing to their relative strengths Many participants were in favour of generating a ‘universe of chemicals’ that was as inclusive as possible, to enable a range of chemicals to be considered and assist in capturing emerging contaminants. In conjunction with this it was proposed that there would be a well defined procedure to de-list substances following an initial ranking step so that effort was not expended on substances that do not warrant it. The INERIS approach has merit where monitoring data are available, to refine the prioritisation, e.g. where there is some evidence that a substance is likely to be a priority. A scheme that exploits the strengths of the relatively simple scoring-based UK and ECB approaches, and the more intensive INERIS approach was proposed, and is summarised below. It has advantages over the current approach because:- WG-E(4)-08-09- Draft Minutes of the 3rd Workshop on Prioritisation
EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE Institute for Health and Consumer Protection Consumer Products Safety & Quality Unit
- it is not biased towards substances that are actively monitored - high hazard substances which occur only at low levels are accounted for - the resources to assess each substance are smaller - technical problems are reduced because intensive gathering of data is only required for substances that are likely to be a priority. WG-E(4)-08-09- Draft Minutes of the 3rd Workshop on Prioritisation
EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE Institute for Health and Consumer Protection Consumer Products Safety & Quality Unit
MS define “Universe of chemicals”
PRIORITISATION – SCREENING (based on revision of UK proposed approach)
EXPOSURE EFFECTS ASSESSMEN ASSESSMEN T T
PRELIMINAR Y RANKING
PEER REVIEW (incorporating a de- listing procedure. This may include issues such as representativeness
PRIORITISATION – REFINED (possibly based on revision of INERIS approach)
EXPOSURE EFFECTS ASSESSMEN ASSESSMEN T T
RISK RANKING
FINAL RISK RANKING WG-E(4)-08-09- Draft Minutes of the 3rd Workshop on Prioritisation
EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE Institute for Health and Consumer Protection Consumer Products Safety & Quality Unit
The participants of the workshop were invited to deliver following information to CPS&Q by 26th September - Comments on the ranking criteria proposed by the UK - Propose lists of substances of concern - Propose criteria to de-list substances - UK was invited to provide an estimate of the resources required to apply the UK scoring approach - CPS&Q will coordinate the process and will modify and/or add some information to the modified ECB/UK proposal and report the results to the WGE meeting. In addition, it was agreed that in order to define the universe of chemicals MS should submit their list of substances of concern even if no monitoring data are available. UK will also provide with information on EQS values already developed by some MSs for substances that are not on the PS list. In 2009 DG-ENV will decide on best method for prioritisation to select PS, a final refinement will be done by the contractor of DG-ENV
Klaus Daginnus