(This note is not part of the Regulations)
These Regulations amend the Private Water Supplies Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2009 (“the Principal Regulations”) with the aim of further protecting human health from the adverse effects of any contamination of water supplied for human consumption purposes. In particular, they make further provision to implement Council Directive 2013/51/Euratom laying down requirements for the protection of the health of the general public with regard to radioactive substances in water intended for human consumption. The Principal Regulations are amended in the following ways.
Regulation 2 is amended to include definitions and expressions.
Regulation 7 is amended to include details on the requirements of a risk assessment.
Regulation 7A is inserted to include radon survey requirements.
Regulation 8 is amended to include that required sampling is distributed equally in time.
Schedule 1 is amended to include Radon to the list of indicator parameters and to set a Radon parametric value of 100 Bq/l.
Schedule 2 ceases to have effect.
Schedule 3 is amended to include check monitoring for ID, Radon and Tritium and to require the Department to communicate the decision to exclude any radioactive parameters from monitoring to the European Commission along with supporting evidence for the decision.
Schedule 4 is amended to include details for monitoring of indicative dose using gross alpha and gross beta as a screening strategy and to outline the additional analysis required if either gross alpha or gross beta is found to exceed the screening level. It also sets minimum limits of detection for analysis of a range of radionuclides.