IN today’s JEP we set out the various perspectives on an issue which is often used as a bellwether of a modern community: clean drinking water. Of course, that simple word “clean” is often deeply complex, and in this case, it refers to the level of the manmade, “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.
The fact that those chemicals have become widely distributed throughout the Island’s water supply is widely accepted – as is the fact that they currently fall very well within international limits. However, the States Assembly will shortly be asked to set a new lower local limit for PFAS – and making sure our water meets it, in the required timeframe of five years, is something Jersey Water has warned may cause bills to double, because of the multi-million pound investment it will need to make in new treatment works.
Thanks to the work of local campaigners, this is an issue which has steadily built for at least the last two decades – so readers may wonder why it seems to be finally coming to a head now? The answer is the forthcoming election, with the Environment Minister quite open about the fact that he said he would bring a proposal on PFAS before the end of this term of office, so that is exactly what he has now done.
Of course, the Government is quite bewilderingly conflicted, being both the major shareholder in the provider, Jersey Water and the polluter, Jersey Airport – while also being the regulator and the legislator; and aside from bill payers, the likely source of any funds needed to pay for a solution.
When we talk about one of Jersey’s strengths being the ability to get all the decision-makers in one room, perhaps we didn’t mean that’s because they were all effectively the same person.
Notwithstanding that, while accepting the proposed new limits, Jersey Water do not accept the timeframe. Essentially their view is that with more time, cheaper technologies to remove PFAS can be trialled without the need to build a new treatment works at a cost of up to £210m. They say the proposed new limits are not too much, but there are too soon.
Central to the argument is their view that the new limits are purely “precautionary,” and the current quality of our water presents “no cause for concern.” Whereas campaigners argue that PFAS accumulates in the body, so we need to consider long-term exposure, not short-term consumption.
All of which means this long-running issue still comes back to same single question it started with: what do we mean by “clean”?
