En vir onment The Mineral R aw Materials Industry tak es gr eat car e to mini mise the en vir onmental and visible impact of its operations W aste management water pr otection air emissions and biodiv ersity ar e k ey issues in the sector In 2019 water waste and biodiv ersity issues took much of E ur omines attention W at er F ramew ork Directiv e Thr oughout 2019 E ur omines participated in the EU s C ommon Implementation Strategy for the W ater F rame work Dir ectiv e with DG En vir onment and the Member States mainly on topics r elated to the r ec ent evaluation of the W ater F ramework Dir ectiv e a Fitness Check Ov er the last decades befor e and after the adoption of the WFD industry including mining has r educ ed discharges to water dramatically leading to a significant impr o v ement of the status of E ur opean waters One example is fr om Sweden wher e in the period 2013 to 2017 the discharge of hea vy metals has been r educ ed despite incr easing Nonferr ous or e pr oduction sour c es Swedish National Emission Register www naturvardsv erk et se and Swedish Geological Surv ey https apps sgu se geolagr et E ur omines r eleased a position paper in Mar ch expr essing both support and c onc ern about the curr ently ongoing im plementation of the Dir ectiv e Special focus was giv en to the leg al interpr etation of the c onc ept of deterioration and a 2015 judgment of the E ur opean C ourt of Justic e of a German ruling C 461 13 Bund fur Umwelt und Natur schutz Deutschland e V v Bundesr epublik Deutschland the W eser Ruling A E ur omines W ater T ask F or c e met sev eral times and interacted intensiv ely with officials fr om DG En vir onment and DG Gr ow in c ooperation with other industrial sectors E ur omines pr o vided r eal case studies fr om members that demonstrated the difficulties that the W eser Ruling had cr eated for industrial and public infra structur e pr ojects A t c ompletion of the Fitness Check the C ommission r e turned to the pr oc ess of r evising the W atch List for poten tial priority substanc es under the En vir onmental Quality Standards EQS Dir ectiv e for surf ac e waters E ur omines en g aged in the discussions emphasising the need to follow the agr eed criteria for watchlisting of substanc es as set down in the EQS Dir ectiv e This pr oc ess has c ontinued into 2020 In parallel E ur omines made a significant c ontribution to new EU guidanc e on taking ac c ount of natural backgr ound lev els in EU surf ac e waters The final v ersion was deliv er ed to DG En vir onment mid y ear and is expected to be pub lished during 2020 Table of Contents page 31 of 35 S ustainabi li ty and Competi ti veness Swedish annual NonF e ore production Mt and As C dPb discharge kg 2013 2017 NonFe Ore Productions Mt 47 180 46 160 45 140 44 120 43 100 42 60 80 41 40 40 20 39 0 2013 2014 2015 Year 2016 2017 NonF e Or e pr od As discharge kg C d discharge kg Pb discharge kg