New publications this month:
HM GOVERNMENT
25 Year Environment Plan Progress Report
This report presents progress against the Government’s 25 year environment plan between April 2019 and March 2020.
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
Surface water pollution risk assessment for your environmental permit
This webpage provides guidance on undertaking risk assessments for bespoke permits including discharges to surface water. This guidance has been updated to remove the term ‘limit of detection’, replacing it with minimum reporting value (MRV). ‘Less than’ values should always be set at a MRV.
Waste: import and export
Guidance on transfrontier shipment has been updated to reflect the impacts of Brexit.
Monitoring Discharges
Online guidance has been published replacing the former M18 technical guidance note.:
COVID-19 regulatory position statements
During June 2020, the Environment Agency extended the following COVID-19 regulatory position statements until 30 September 2020.
Coronavirus: Environment Agency update
The Environment Agency has issued details of how it is undertaking its regulatory duties during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Regulatory Position Statements
Storing and dewatering street sweeping waste: RPS 65
This statement has been updated to make it clear it only applies to local authorities, Highways England and their contractors.
The statement was also extended until 31 January 2023.
Accepting, classifying and disposing of household packaging waste: RPS 234
This statement defines when operators of sites accepting waste can accept separately collected household packaging waste.
DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Importing and exporting plants and plant products from 1 January 2021
Importing animals, animal products and high-risk food and feed not of animal origin from 1 January 2021
Guidance is provided on trading in plants, plant products, animals, animal products and high-risk food and feed after the end of the post-Brexit transition period.
Apply for CITES permits and certificates to move or trade endangered species
Further guidance has been provided on CITES import and export permits. Updated guidance is also provided on penalties under the regime.
FORESTRY COMMISSION
Forestry Commission field guide on European protected species
This guide concerns protected woodland wildlife.
SCOTTISH ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AGENCY (SEPA)
Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018: Guide to standard conditions for radioactive substances activities
This document provides guidance on standard conditions included within integrated authorisations for radioactive substances activities.
DAERA
During June 2020, the following new COVID-19 regulatory position statements were published:
The following statements were extended until 30 November 2020:
The following statement was extended until 31 July 2020
BREXIT UPDATE
The future of UK carbon pricing - UK government and devolved administrations' response
During June 2020, the UK Government and devolved administrations published a response to the 2019 consultation ‘The future of UK carbon pricing’.
A future consultation will concern details of a UK carbon emissions tax. This would act as a ‘fallback’ scheme to the UK ETS to ensure carbon pricing continues.
The UK Emissions Trading System (UK ETS)
The consultation response presents proposals for a UK emissions trading system (UK ETS), which could operate either as:
The consultation response states that the UK ETS is planned to support the UK’s net zero by 2050 target.
The UK ETS would operate from 1 January 2021.
Scope of the UK ETS
The system would apply to energy intensive industries, power generation and aviation, in keeping with the EU ETS.
It is anticipated that flights within the UK and between the UK, European Economic Area, Gibraltar and Switzerland will be included within the UK ETS.
Excluded and Exempted Installations
Ultra-small emitters (installations emitting less than 2,500 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) annually) will remain exempt from the UK ETS, providing they monitor emissions and report where the threshold is exceeded.
Municipal incinerators will not be subject to the UK ETS until 2025.
Agriculture and land use will be excluded from the scheme and will instead be subject to alternative controls.
Small UK aircraft operators flying within the UK will be exempt.
Auctions and Allocations
Free allocations will be maintained from the EU ETS, including additional allowances offered for sectors at risk of carbon leakage.
The UK ETS cap on allowances will be set at 95% of the UK’s share of the EU ETS phase IV cap.
Auctions will continue to take place under the UK ETS. The UK ETS will retain a new entrants reserve. Allowances within this reserve will be available to existing participants increasing their activity level by 15% or more. Free allocations will be reduced for installations ceasing to operate or reducing their activity by 15% or more.
Auctions of allowances under the UK ETS will be time-limited and would be able to complete without the sale of all allowances, unlike the EU ETS. Unsold allowances would then pass into the next auction up to a maximum of 125% of the original planned sale amount. This would lead to the removal of excess allowances from the UK ETS where this is inadequate demand.
Small Emitters and Hospitals
The UK ETS will continue the small emitter and hospital opt-out scheme. Annual reduction targets will continue.
Market Stability Mechanisms
As with the EU ETS, the effectiveness of the system to reduce emissions may be affected by market fluctuations.
The UK ETS would replace the EU’s market stability reserve mechanism with a phased approach, including three mechanisms:
Monitoring and Reporting Emissions
Reporting under the UK ETS will be undertaken via an online registry, as is currently the case with the EU ETS. It is understood that monitoring reporting obligations will be simplified, notably including the ability to consolidate emissions sources totalling 10 tCO2e or less.
Five figure sum donated to wildlife trust following packaging waste offences
The Works Stores, a discount retailer of books, art and craft materials, gifts, toys and games, has agreed to make a substantial donation to the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, after it was found the company had not met its packaging waste obligations.
Companies with a turnover of £2 million or more and which handle more than 50 tonnes of packaging per year must ensure a certain percentage of waste packaging is recycled. This is generally met through participation in a compliance scheme.
The Works Stores admitted that it had not been registered as a producer of waste packaging under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007. This oversight arose due to a lack of awareness of this legislation between 7 April 2010 and 7 April 2016.
Enforcement Undertaking
The Works Stores offered a financial contribution of £35,868.12 to Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. This enforcement undertaking was accepted by the Environment Agency as an alternative to prosecution.
Jail terms for three individuals who dumped mustard gas bombs in a Lincolnshire lake
Jail sentences have been received by three persons after they were found to have dumped mustard gas bombs.
In September 2017, a husband and wife came across a half-buried box of mustard gas bombs in Roughton Woods, near Woodhall Spa. The pair they contacted a friend who used to repair weapons in the Territorial Army to identify what they had found but didn’t get an immediate identification.
10 days later, the pair returned with a third person and uncovered a total of 16 canisters and three earthenware bottles. One bottle was prised open – exposing what one of the individuals called ‘really smelly oil’ inside – before his friend texted, confirmed the containers were full of mustard gas, and advised alerting the authorities.
However, one individual had already poured three bottles of mustard gas onto the ground so he could take the empty bottles home with him, along with 10 unopened canisters. The group left the other six canisters but didn’t report their find, despite knowing what a dangerous substance they’d uncovered.
Later that day, they decided to dump the canisters in Stixwould Lake, where one of the individuals worked. They took a dinghy, rowed out into the lake and left the containers to sink to the bottom, before burning their clothes.
The next day one of the individuals treatment for blisters on his forearms and another was treated for breathing difficulties. Only then did the pair alert the police but lied about the circumstances and didn’t tell officers about the bombs they dumped in the lake.
Inconsistencies emerged from the trio’s stories and all three were arrested. Authorities then launched a major operation to secure the woods, lake and suspects’ homes, and to recover the hazardous chemical.
An 11-day multiple organisation response then took place. This saw roads closed, drones deployed, safety cordons put in place and at least one home evacuated while teams worked around the clock to tackle the tactical challenges of safely removing the bombs from the lake.
Environment Agency sonar equipment finally determined the bombs’ location in the lake before Royal Navy divers were sent in to retrieve them. The bombs were immediately transferred to the specialist defence science and technology lab in Porton Down. Testing confirmed that the containers were still sealed and had not leaked.
Penalty
All three pleaded guilty to the environmental charges brought alongside the first charge for possessing chemical weapons in the UK.
One man was jailed for 5 years for possession of firearms, plus 16 months’ concurrent sentence for possession of a chemical weapon.
His wife and friend were both handed a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years for possession of a chemical weapon.
The friend also pleaded guilty to dumping a substance likely to harm human health or pollute the environment.
Water company prosecuted for sewage pollution incident in Shropshire
Severn Trent Water Ltd has been fined after it was found to have allowed 3.8 million litres of raw sewage to enter a Shropshire stream from a local sewage treatment works.
On 10 May 2016, an Environment Agency employee identified a strong unpleasant odour and found a ditch full of raw sewage at Acton Burnell.
A subsequent inspection by an Environment Agency officer identified that the brook was polluted for 250 metres downstream of the sewage treatment works. The cause of the incident was traced to a fat blockage at the works inlet.
The officer returned three days later to check the sewage had been cleared but identified a further discharge of raw sewage. A Severn Trent Water site operative told him that this was due to the expansion of a nearby college. He said the sewage works serving it was due to be upgraded. Sewage effluent normally discharges into storm tanks during very poor weather conditions, but in this case was found to have been incorrectly discharging via the works storm tanks during normal weather. This meant sewage was being discharged into the brook without being properly treated.
Following the pollution incidents, Severn Trent Water set up a system of pumping the storm tanks at the works to sludge holding tanks, which would then be emptied and taken off site by road tanker. This showed it was possible to run the site in accordance with their permit despite capacity issues.
On inspecting the flow data to the works, the Environment Agency was able to show that discharges of raw sewage had been happening regularly for 17 months, calculating that during this period Severn Trent Water had illegally discharged over 3.8 million litres of raw sewage to the brook.
The court heard that Severn Trent Water had been aware of capacity issues at the works since 2011.
Breaches
Severn Trent Water pleaded guilty to three charges.
Firstly, to breaching Regulation 12(1)(b) and Regulation 38 of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 with respect to discharges to the brook.
Secondly and thirdly, to breaching conditions under the organisation’s environmental permit requiring a labelled discharge sample point and to operate a grass plot treatment facility, contrary to Regulation 38(2) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
Severn Trent Water was fined £800,000 in total (£400,000 on the first and last charge and no separate penalty on the second).The organisation was ordered to pay costs of £70,420.28 and a victim surcharge of £120.
