New publications this month:
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
Climate Change Agreements Operations Manual
Holders of climate change agreements (CCAs) pay reduced rates of climate change levy in return for binding energy efficiency targets.
The CCA scheme closed to new entrants in November 2018. Holders of existing CCAs will continue to receive the reduced rate.
The closure of the scheme is reflected in this updated operation manual.
Assessing and scoring environmental permit compliance
This document sets out how the Environmental Agency assesses and scores environmental permit compliance and what happens during and after a compliance assessment.
MCERTS Guidance
The following guidance was updated in January 2019 to reflect the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard:
Regulatory Position Statements (RPSs)
The following RPSs were introduced or updated in January 2019:
DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD & RURAL AFFAIRS
Clean Air Strategy
This strategy sets out the actions from government and society to improve air quality. The strategy sets out actions to tackle air pollution in order to:
Commitments under the strategy, include:
The Plan complements three other UK government strategies; the Industrial Strategy, the Clean Growth Strategy and the 25 Year Environment Plan.
DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT
Maritime 2050 strategy
This strategy includes commitments to reduce the environmental impact of maritime activities. This includes
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY AND INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY (BEIS)
UK’s Draft Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP)
This document sets out objectives and targets for energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction in the UK, supported by details of policies and their projected impact on performance.
Industrial Heat Recovery Support Programme: guidance and application forms
Assessment window application deadlines have been added.
SCOTTISH ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AGENCY (SEPA)
Three Sector Plans published
Sector plans present how SEPA will regulate specific sectors in order to ensure compliance obligations are met and that as many businesses as possible exceed these minimum standards. Final plans have been published for the following sectors:
Curfew and penalties for East Midlands waste offender
A man from Derby has been sentenced to a curfew and a five-figure fine after pleading guilty to operating a breakers yard without a permit.
At the site in Nottingham, end-of-life vehicles were illegally depolluted and dismantled.
Enquiries into the man’s activities commenced in June 2017, when he took over the site from his son, who was himself serving a 30-week custodial sentence for the same kind of illegal activities at the same location.
The district judge had imposed a Remediation Order against the man’s son, requiring all waste to be removed from the site and for prohibiting transporting additional waste to this location.
The man initially began removing vehicles to comply with the Remediation Order. However, later investigations identified that he had returned to depolluting and dismantling them between 20 November 2017 and 11 January 2018. This was despite him understanding his obligation to get an Environmental Permit for the work and receiving both advice and warnings from the Environment Agency.
During the hearing, Tony Haywood’s ill health and lack of any convictions since 2001 were raised in mitigation. And he insisted he was only trying to comply with the Remediation Order.
Breaches
Tony Haywood pleaded guilty of breaching Regulation 12(1) and Regulation 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.
Penalty
Tony Haywood was sentenced to a four-month community order with a curfew between the hours of 7pm and 7am.
He was also ordered to pay £4,897 in compensation, £8,175.48 in costs and an £85 victim surcharge.
Penalty for illegal waste carrier
A man from Bradford has been fined after he was found to have operated as an illegal waste carrier.
Caught in road-stop sting
The defendant was stopped in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire on 25 May 2018 as part of a multi-agency waste crime initiative. A search of his transit van revealed he was carrying waste carpet.
Environment Agency officers identified that the defendant did not have the required waste carrier registration. He was given 10 days to obtain the necessary paperwork or face prosecution.
Despite the deadline set, a subsequent check in August 2018 identified that the defendant had failed to register as a waste carrier in his name within the 10-day period. He had registered in the name of a partnership 20 days after the offence.
Breach
The man, Andrew Clarke, pleaded guilty to operating as an illegal waste carrier, contrary to the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989.
Andrew Clarke was fined £300 and ordered to pay costs of £2,816.80.
Major fines for Thames Water following “foreseeable and avoidable” pollution
Thames Water has been fined after it was found guilty for an incident where raw sewage polluted two Oxfordshire streams, killing almost 150 fish. The sewage also flooded a nearby garden.
Numerous failures in the management of a sewage pumping station led to sewage from two villages entering two brooks leading to the River Evenlode for up to 24 hours. The incident occurred on 8 and 9 August 2015.
On attendance by the Environment Agency, it was found that the entire local population of almost 150 bullhead fish had been killed by the waste along a 50-metre stretch.
A backlog of raw sewage had been released into the water from a pipe that couldn’t hold it. Sewage also escaped from a manhole and onto a residential front garden.
The court heard that Thames Water had disregarded more than 800 high-priority alarms needing attention within four hours in the six weeks prior to the incident. A further 300 alarms were not properly investigated, which would have pointed out pump station failures. One alarm was deliberately deactivated during a night shift.
An Environment Agency investigation identified that Thames Water was aware that the pumping station failed several times in the 12 months up to and including the incident. Thames Water had also allowed the sewage pumping station to operate with no automatically available standby pump for around 10 months in the year prior to the incident.
The Judge at Oxford Crown Court classed the incident as a high-end, category three harm offence, leading the high level of fines.
Thames Water was fined £2 million. The company was ordered to pay full costs of £79,991.57.
