Future Cabinet urged to help protect drinking water supplies

The Dutch water boards and drinking water companies urged the future Cabinet to actively help them protect the drinking water supply and ensure enough space for water in the Netherlands. “While clean drinking water and dry feet are taken for granted by many Dutch, these ‘certainties’ are under pressure,” they said. “The drinking water companies and water boards can not guarantee on their own that there is sufficient, clean water in the Netherlands.”

Other authorities need to help work on better water retention and protecting drinking water sources, Rogier van der Sande, chairman of the Union of Water Boards, said in a press release. “Together with a new Cabinet, we want to put our shoulders to the wheel on these tasks, which require joint responsibility. After all, healthy, clean, and sufficient water is an essential precondition for many pillars of social security.”

To ensure that Netherlands residents have enough water to drink, the country needs to retain water better, secure and protect drinking water supplies, and invest in better purification installations. “We are reaching the limits of our possibilities and powers; we need the government for spatial planning and legislation.”

The water companies and water boards also urged the government to reserve sufficient space for water and set stricter requirements for water quality. They want a strict substance policy anchored in legislation, with legal bans on harmful substances. This will not only protect public health but promote nature recovery, they said.

“Without healthy, clean, and sufficient water, there is no good public health, no food security, no safety, no prosperity,” said chairman Pieter Litjens of Vewin, the association for drinking water companies. “If the new Cabinet supports the water boards and drinking water companies in their tasks to guarantee clean and sufficient water and to ensure that tasty and healthy drinking water always remains self-evident, they can continue to make their important contribution to a healthy and safe Netherlands.”