3.

Without prejudice to any more stringent requirements in other Community legislation, Member States may exempt from the measures required by paragraph 1 inputs of pollutants that are: the result of direct discharges authorised in accordance with Article 11(3)(j) of Directive 2000/60/EC; considered by the competent authorities to be of a quantity and concentration so small as to obviate any present or future danger of deterioration in the quality of the receiving groundwater; the consequences of accidents or exceptional circumstances of natural cause that could not reasonably have been foreseen, avoided or mitigated; the result of artificial recharge or augmentation of bodies of groundwater authorised in accordance with Article 11(3)(f) of Directive 2000/60/EC; in the view of the competent authorities incapable, for technical reasons, of being prevented or limited without using: measures that would increase risks to human health or to the quality of the environment as a whole; or disproportionately costly measures to remove quantities of pollutants from, or otherwise control their percolation in, contaminated ground or subsoil; or the result of interventions in surface waters for the purposes, amongst others, of mitigating the effects of floods and droughts, and for the management of waters and waterways, including at international level. Such activities, including cutting, dredging, relocation and deposition of sediments in surface water, shall be conducted in accordance with general binding rules, and, where applicable, with permits and authorisations issued on the basis of such rules, developed by the Member States for that purpose, provided that such inputs do not compromise the achievement of the environmental objectives established for the water bodies concerned in accordance with Article 4(1)(b) of Directive 2000/60/EC. The exemptions provided for in points (a) to (f) may be used only where the Member States' competent authorities have established that efficient monitoring of the bodies of groundwater concerned, in accordance with point 2.4.2 of Annex V to Directive 2000/60/EC, or other appropriate monitoring, is being carried out.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-28 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.