Drinking water – clean water, but how?
– Project info from the Danish Board of Technology.
Clear messages from citizens, experts and politicians on how we ensure the existence of clean drinking water in Denmark. This was the result of the Danish Board of Technology conference “Drinking water – clean water, but how?” held at Christiansborg Palace Saturday 16 November 1996.
The Board put drinking water to the vote among 60 citizens, 60 experts and 60 politicians from the Folketinget (the parliament), regional and local authorities. At the conference, the 180 participants should decide on five action plans for ensuring clean drinking water. The plans were presented by the agricultural sector, the Danish Agrochemical Association, the Danish Association of County Councils, the Watershed Information Centre for the Protection of Groundwater within Agriculture and the Danish Water Supply Association. Only one point did the plans have in common, i.e. a long-term objective of ensuring clean, unpurified drinking water for the Danes. On all other points the plans diverged.
The overall ballot result from citizens, experts and politicians elected the plan from the Danish Water Supply Association as winner, one vote over the plan of the Watershed Information Centre, which came second.
The most telling result was probably that the Watershed Information Centre plan, the most radical plan presented, was popular with so many participants. Almost 50% of the citizens voted for the Watershed Information Centre plan which calls for a ban on the agricultural use of pesticides, against compensation. It also attracted about 33% of the experts and politicians.
The agricultural sector plan – like that of the Danish Association of County Councils – won 14% of the total votes, whereas no one voted for the plan of the Danish Agrochemical Association. Only four participants stated that they were unable to decide which plan they preferred.
Supplementary questions
To test the validity of the action plan ballot, the participants were asked to answer five supplementary questions. One question read: “There are claims that the use of pesticides has no significant effect on the groundwater, if used correctly. Should we base Danish policy on this claim?”. Unity prevailed among citizens, experts and politicians – 84% of the ballot total said no.
To the question of whether the agricultural sector, against compensation, should cease its use of pesticides completely, more than 50% of the citizens answered yes. So did 41% of the politicians and 34% of the experts. The support for general measures was further demonstrated by the fact that 70% of the participants were in favour of subjecting the entire agricultural area to a limitation on pesticide and fertiliser use.
No. 3, July 1997
The action plans – in short
The agricultural sector believes that the effect of activities already launched in many cases will be sufficient to ensure clean groundwater. No more general regulation is needed. In addition, the objectives of the plan “Good husbandry” – produced by the agriculture sector – will contribute to ensuring the future supply of drinking water.
The Danish Agrochemical Association supports cultivation practises based on the concept of “Good husbandry”. In addition, the Association sees the revaluation of pesticides and monitoring of the groundwater as ensuring a positive development.
The Danish Association of County Councils identifies the protection of clean drinking water as one of the most significant challenges of Danish environmental policy. The objective must be long-term prevention, adaptation of the collection without giving up today’s decentral water supply and repair of the damage already done. The Association believes that it will not be sufficient just to implement measures in the designated drinking water areas.
The action plan of Watershed Information Centre calls for a ban on the agricultural use of pesticides before the year 2000. Instead, farmers must be given financial support which enables them to change over to organic farming. In addition, the leaching of nitrate must be halved, e.g., through an effectivisation of fertiliser utilisation.
The basic principle of the action plan of the Danish Water Supply Association is that the areas supplying drinking water should come under the responsibility of the public utility companies. For instance, a public utility company should be able to impose restrictions on cultivation.
New opinion poll
As a follow-up to the conference, the Board of Technology launched a major opinion poll where a representative sample of the population was asked the conference questions in January 1997. The poll was carried out by Vilstrup Research A/S and publicised in cooperation with the newspaper Politiken. The population’s responses and the results from the Board conference were identical almost down to the last cipher. The survey also revealed that two-thirds of the Danes believe that Denmark should convert to organic farming. The same response was also given by every second farmer.
Contents and method
Focus of the conference
In Denmark so far we have always considered the clean drinking water in our faucets to be a natural thing. It no longer is. In several places in Denmark, the groundwater beneath us is so polluted that it is unfit for drinking. And in other places, the clean drinking water is insufficient to cover needs. Almost two-thirds of Denmark’s area are used by the agricultural sector, and these fields hide the bulk of our drinking water. This is why the agricultural sector is critical to the quality of the
groundwater. Thus, the conference focused on the extensive surface load and on entailing groundwater problems, caused by the use of pesticides and fertiliser (nitrate).
Action plans
On this backdrop, the Board of Technology asked the question: how do we ensure clean drinking water in future? The Board invited five significant players with direct or indirect influence on the quality of drinking water to respond. These were the agricultural sector, the Danish Agrochemical Association, the Danish Association of County Councils, the Watershed Information Centre and the Danish Water Supply Association. At the conference each player presented his own proposed action plan. The individual plans were formulated on the basis of a common concept, which ensured that each action plan would consider the same aspects.
Prior to the voting at the conference, the participants were charged with questioning the presenters of the plans to ensure that key parts of the plans were sufficiently clear. Ahead of the conference, each participant received conference material on drinking water and groundwater. This was done to outline the starting point of the conference and offer the participants the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the subject and consider the matter in advance.
The vote
Following the presentation of the action plans and hearing questions from the room, the 180 participants were to vote for that of the five plans they each preferred. The participants stemmed from three groups: 60 citizens, 60 experts and 60 politicians (from the parliament, regional and local authorities). The result of the ballot showed which of the five action plans received the most votes and how the three groups had voted.
As an aspect of the voting, each participant also had to answer five questions. The individual participants remained anonymous in both their voting and their responses – but were registered as either citizen, expert or politician.
Participants of the conference
Citizen participation was a significant element of the conference. The Board of Technology invited 1,020 randomly selected citizens aged 18-70, with 10 men and 10 women from each age group. The Central Population Register Agency of the Ministry of the Interior was charged with the random selection. This method means that the 1,020 people may be designated as a representative sample of the population. 150 citizens replied that they were interested in participating in the conference. 60 of them were selected for participation. The selection was performed by drawing lots, while still ensuring that participants were distributed as much as possible by age, sex and domicile.
Experts from public agencies and institutions, technical departments in counties and local authorities, employees from public utilities, the industry, the agricultural sector, environmental organisations, etc. were invited. Thus, the concept of expert was interpreted as people engaged professionally in drinking water and/or groundwater. The 60 experts were also divided equally to represent the five players presenting action plans as well as independent experts from public institutions.
Politicians came from the parliament and from regional and local councils all over the country.
Organisation of the project
The Board of Technology project on drinking water was organised by a planning group consisting of
- Anne Marie Zinck, head of section, Danish Farmers’ Union
- Per Kristensen, president, Danish Agrochemical Association
- Alex Sonnenborg, head of groundwater section, County of Storstrøm
- Lone Albrektsen, M.Sc. (agricultural science) Watershed Information Centre
- Gyrite Brandt, M.Sc. (geology), Copenhagen Water Suppy
- Anne Funch Rohmann, project manager, the Danish Board of Technology
The specific role of the planning group was to participate in the preparation of conference material – including to ensure that the material reflected a balance of several attitudes. Conference material, action plans and results of the conference are available in a debate book on drinking water and groundwater (in danish), published by the Board of Technology after the conference.