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5.3 Legislative Developments
Up until the enforcement of the Water Act 1989, Part II of COPA incorporated a great deal of the legislation connected with the control of water pollution in England and Wales. This also re-enacted and built upon previous pollution controls in the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts 1951 and 1961 and sections 72 and 76 of the Water Resources Act 1963. Under the Water Act 1989, the National Rivers Authority (NRA) was set up as an independent statutory body, which had responsibilities that covered:
- The conservation and preservation of natural water resources, water abstraction licensing.
- The control of water quality throughout the river systems of England and Wales and the control of pollution of the controlled waters.
The River Purification Authorities (RPA's) had much the same responsibilities in Scotland. Following the passage of the EA 1995, in 1996 the NRA and RPA were included under the Environment Agency and SEPA respectively. In Northern Ireland, such responsibility remained with the local authorities.
Another result of the Water Act 1989 was the privatisation of the water industry in England and Wales into ten regional water service companies such as Severn Trent. Supplemented with this, there are a further 21 operating water companies within these ten regions.
The main legislation, as enacted by COPA 1974, remains fundamentally unchanged, although it has been extended and amended. The main principles are:
- To enlarge the pollution control regime to cover all inland waters, tidal rivers, estuaries, the sea (up to three miles, and possibly more) and some groundwaters.
- To prohibit (with only a few exceptions) the release of all poisonous, noxious or general polluting substances through acts such as dumping waste into a river.
- To issue permits for the discharge of trade effluent, on the condition that discharge limits are adhered to.
- To aid water authorities in undertaking water pollution prevention operations, or remedial operations where pollution has taken place, and to claim the costs off those responsible.
- To enlarge upon and give access to procedures for effluent discharge control to the public. This provides also for public advertisement, third party representations and public enquiry.
The Water Act 1989 (enforced in England and Wales) built the foundations for the privatisation of the water industry. In the main, this Act has been repealed and re-enacted by the Water Industry Act 1991 and the Water Resources Act 1991, which are dealt with by the sewerage undertakers, the Director General of Water Services and local authority and the Environment Agency respectively. Both of these Acts bring together all of the legislation concerning water that before, were shared amongst around 20 statutes. The Water Resources Act 1991 contains the majority of UK legislation covering pollution of the water environment. The purpose of the Act is to prevent or minimise pollution of controlled waters and it sets out responsibilities of the Environment Agency as the main regulatory body for maintaining and improving the quality of these waters. Under this Act, any company that wishes to discharge trade effluent- which is anything other than rain water into controlled waters needs to get a discharge consent form the Environment Agency. Limits are set on certain parameters of the effluent discharge such as flow rate, pH and suspended solids content. Should any consent limits be exceeded, the company is at risk of prosecution by the Environment Agency.
The Water Industry Act 1991 was devised to control trade effluent discharges to sewer. Under this, any company wishing to discharge to sewer anything other than sewage needs to hold a consent from the local sewerage undertaker (in most cases this is the same water company that provides the fresh water to the site). Again, a breach of a consent limit means a risk of prosecution.
If a company has any prescribed process(es) on site or wishes to discharge to the sewers any of the most dangerous Red-List substances, it needs to reason with the sewerage undertaker and the Environment Agency. In such a situation, the trade Effluents (Prescribed processes and Substances) Regulations 1991 take precedent over the general duty of the sewerage undertakers to accept effluent. In order to allow discharge of Red List substances or effluent from any prescribed process, sewerage undertakers need to refer to the application for a consent to discharge to the Environment Agency.
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