Both the Danish Society for Nature Conservation and SF want to dig the Danish Environmental Protection Agency after it has emerged that for a number of years, directly against EU rules, it has granted dispensation to waterworks when it comes to pesticides in drinking water.
This was stated on Tuesday evening in a press release from the Ministry of the Environment. The Ministry writes that since 2013 – and despite instructions to the contrary from the EU Commission – the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has granted exemptions to exceed limits for pesticides in drinking water.
Maria Reumert Gjerding, who is president of the Danish Society for Nature Conservation, calls it completely unacceptable handling of authority.
– It is a huge scandal that the authorities that have been set up in the world to protect citizens’ health and drinking water have so grossly violated EU rules.
– The Danish Environmental Protection Agency has given waterworks permission to send drinking water with too high concentrations of pesticides to the Danes’ taps, even though it was actually illegal, she writes in a comment.
Already in December last year, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency received harsh criticism from the National Audit Office for its handling of exemptions.
At the time, it concerned authorizations for the use of pesticides that were either banned or not yet approved.
– This is not the first time that the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has been caught in error in handling pesticides, which has had major consequences for nature, groundwater and drinking water.
– Last time it was careless handling of dispensation for continued use of non-approved pesticides, and now this. It is grotesque, writes SF’s environmental spokesman, Carl Valentin, in a comment.
The party demands a “complete review of pesticide legislation and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency’s handling of it”.
The government support party Enhedslisten will also have answers on how this could have happened.
– This is scandalous! For seven years, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has totally ignored drinking water requirements. It is incomprehensible – and a failure, at a time when the scandals about new discoveries of pesticides in our water are spreading. The minister must explain himself in a consultation, writes the party’s environmental spokesman, Mai Villadsen, on Twitter.
The Danish Society for Nature Conservation believes that there is “a huge clean-up task ahead” in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.
– It is absolutely crucial that we as citizens can have confidence in the authorities.
– This case clearly shows that there is a need for a major clean-up in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, so that we as citizens can be sure that the authorities look after the interests of citizens and drinking water – and not agriculture, writes Maria Reumert Gjerding.
Source: The Nordic Page