Water master meeting 2024 in Braunschweig

Water master meeting on drinking fountains

As a speaker, I had the great pleasure of attending the recent water master meeting in Braunschweig. As managing director of Aquadona GmbH, it was an asset and pleasure for me to personally meet the people who are often responsible for the smooth operation of the drinking fountains, which are now required by law.

It was also an honor for me to talk about such an important and lasting topic ”publicly accessible drinking waterr” in the context of the new Water Resources Act.

The atmosphere surrounding the topic at the meeting was inspiring, with a clear focus on the challenges and benefits in the area of heat prevention and resource conservation. As a speaker, I had the opportunity to share my expertise on how we can have a positive impact on people's health and protect the environment by implementing drinking fountains.

During my presentation, I discussed the possibilities of sustainable solutions for dealing with drinking water. Installing drinking fountains is not only a step towards ensuring safe access to clean drinking water, but also helps reduce plastic bottle waste and promote healthy lifestyles.

29th Wassermeistertreffen 2024 in Braunschweig

The 29th water master meeting at KEBI in Braunschweig was expanded this time to include the acute topic of “drinking fountains”. We at Aquadona are particularly proud to have been invited and, in 3 days, have informed over seventy water masters (yes - all men), representatives of water suppliers, network operators and water companies about the amended Water Resources Act with a focus on drinking fountains.

Over 3 days, there were lectures and informative talks from eye to eye about the usefulness of and prerequisites for drinking fountains, as they are still called out of date here and there.

The requirement for the installation of drinking water fountains in Germany was met by the Federal Council on 12.03.2023 as a result of the new edition of the Water Resources Act. On that day, the EU requirement for European member states, which had already been adopted in 2022, was implemented into national, German law and the requirement for drinking fountains was implemented in the Water Budget Act for the first time.

Since then, municipalities, cities and local water suppliers have been required to implement this law — and there are a mountain of questions that vary from location to location and need to be clarified.

This would be, for example, the most urgent question of financing the whole thing, which is a small challenge in almost every city, but is being overcome more and more quickly. With subsidies or higher household budgets, for example. A general transfer of costs to the price of water is not allowed to everyone and has already led to lawsuits.

There is also no one-size-fits-all solution, such as a concept that can be applied to all cities, as responsibilities and local conditions in particular differ greatly from one another.

That is why it is now time to exchange experiences with each other, to communicate expertise and to find solutions together.

At this water master meeting, as well as our monthly webinars, there were many astonished faces, new insights and motivation to meet the demand for free, publicly accessible drinking water in their own city. See the websites EU Drinking Water Directive and Federal Ministry for Environment & Nature Conservation.

The participants showed increasing interest in the topic and exciting discussions developed about how we can jointly contribute to improving the availability of drinking water while protecting the environment. It was inspiring to see how the momentum of the participants increased when I spoke about the future digitalization of drinking water and gave insights into our research and plans that we have developed for future drinking fountains. During these 3 days, it became clear that people (must) be interested in this topic and are ready to take concrete measures.

During the event, the DVGW leaflet 274 will have drinking fountains compliant SUSA taken as an example, as it also meets the requirements of BLAG guidelines meets, on the basis of which health authorities orient themselves, which, for example, determine the maintenance interval based on local conditions.

Overall, my participation in the 29th water master meeting at KEBI in Braunschweig was an enriching experience and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to speak out on this important topic. I am confident that through further, joint efforts, positive change can be made that has long-term effects on the health and well-being of communities around the world.