Drinking Water in Germany: A Case Study of High Quality Drinking Water - Global Drinking Water Management and Conservation - page 275

12.9 Regulatory Requirements: Comparing Ontario
and Germany

Like most developed countries, Germany has set Maximum Concentration Levels
(MCLs) for drinking water (see Tables 12.4 and 12.5 ). These cover chemical and
other indicator parameters, while MCLs on water quality in Ontario are divided into
three categories: microbiological, chemical, and radiological parameters. All MCLs
for microbiological parameters are zero in Germany and Ontario. That is, Esche-
richia coli (E. Coli) and total coliforms should not be detectable in drinking water
samples. Although Germany does not set MCLs for radiological parameters, in
comparison with Ontario a number of MCLs for chemical parameters are consid-
erably lower, including 1,2 dichloroethane, antimony, boron, cadmium, nitrite,

tetrachloroethene, trichloroethene, trihalomethanes, uranium, and vinyl chloride.
The only German MCL for a chemical parameter that is substantially higher than that
of Ontario is for nitrate (50 mg/l), when compared to the Ontario MCL of 10 mg/l,
while as shown above, the wastewater treatment achieves a signi

-

cant reduction of
nitrate in Germany and since 2010, the nitrate concentrations comply with the limit
value of 50 mg/L. Some chemicals such as N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA),
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) + metab-
olites, and pentachlorophenol have no required MCLs in Germany, but are regulated
in Ontario, while acrylamide, copper, epichlorohydrin, nickel, and polycyclic aro-
matic hydrocarbons have stated MCLs in Germany, but are not regulated in Ontario.
We expect that NDMA and PCBs are not regulated in Germany because the
wastewater treatment is of a suf

ciently high standard that these contaminants are
removed at the wastewater treatment stage. However, unlike Ontario, there are
unregulated but Health-Related Indicator Values for all micropollutants in Germany.
This is a signi

cant advancement in the quest for contaminant free drinking water.

12.10 Conclusion

Our review of the available literature shows that the German water sector is well
organized. Although the prices are high, when taking quality and performance into
account, the price is in fact lower than some other European countries. Furthermore,
German authorities regard the conservation of water as a social objective and so
they put a high price on water in order to promote conservation. This is credible as
Germany has the lowest level of leaks, as shown above. Another important social
objective is the maintenance and restoration of ecosystem functioning, a very
laudable objective.
By volume, more of the water is supplied by private sector companies, although
there are more public sector utilities. Some 74 percent of drinking water comes
from groundwater sources, which is typically of high quality before it is treated in
the drinking water treatment plants. It is likely to be free of many micropollutants.