New publications this month:

DEPARTMENT OF FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DEFRA)

Decide if a material is waste or not: General Guide

This brief online guide on determining whether material meets the definition of waste has been updated.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Water resources planning

Water companies are required to prepare water resource management plans and drought plans. This online guidance provides an overview of the plan preparation and review process.

New hydropower scheme: apply to build one

This online guidance has been updated to reflect the transfer of the flood risk consenting regime to environmental permitting. Environmental permits are now required for flood risk activities - when you build in, over or next to main rivers (for rivers and watercourses that aren’t main rivers you must apply to your lead local flood authority for consent).

Waste Management and Non-waste Material

Hazardous waste: consignment note guidance

This guidance has been updated to provide further information on hazardous waste consignment note coding.

Turn your waste into a new non-waste product or material

This online guidance has been updated to provide clarification on the meaning of 'waste that has been converted into a distinct and marketable product'.

Regulatory position statement: the management of radioactive items found in scrap metal

Metal recycling sites do not have to obtain a permit for radioactive waste found in scrap metal if they meet the requirements of this regulatory position statement. The statement was updated in May 2016.

Requirements of the statement include:

• storing the waste safely and securely until it can be disposed of;
• notifying the Environment Agency of the discovery of the radioactive waste; and
• disposing of the waste within 6 months by a disposal route agreed with the Environment Agency.

Aggregate from waste steel slag: quality protocol

This quality protocol defines when aggregate made from steel slag is no longer waste. It now also applies to Northern Ireland.

Non-packaging plastics: quality protocol

This quality protocol defines when non-packaging plastics are no longer waste. It now also applies to Northern Ireland.

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE (DECC)

Guidance on when new marine Natura 2000 sites should be taken into account in offshore renewable energy consents and licences

This document has supports developers in determining how new Natura 2000 sites should be taken into account by developers and holders of offshore renewable energy consents and licences.

DEPARTMENT FOR COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (DCLG)

Energy Performance Certificates: opt-out of public disclosure

The DCLG is permitting bulk access to energy performance and display energy certificate data to anyone that wishes to access the data, subject to the terms of a copyright notice.

Holders of certificates will be able to opt-out from allowing the data about the building they own or occupy being released by filing an opt-out notice online before 30 June 2016.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DAERA)

Wildlife law and you

Updated guidance has been published on wildlife protection law in Northern Ireland. Legislation covered by this guidance includes the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, as amended.

Marine Licensing                                                                                                 

A series of guidance documents on licensing under Part 4 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 have been updated:

• overview and process
• construction (including renewables) and removals
• dredging, disposal and aggregate dredging
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• emergency and high risk works
• exemptions to marine licensing

enforcement 

Yorkshire Water fined £1.1million for illegal sewage discharge

Yorkshire Water was sentenced at Leeds Crown court on 29 April 2016 for illegally discharging sewage that polluted the River Ouse near York. The cause of the overflow was pump failure at the company’s Naburn treatment works which allowed 6,000 cubic metres of sewage to enter the river. Water quality in the river was affected for up to a kilometre and visible effluent was present for around 200 metres from the discharge point.

The company is required to have a backup pump available at all times under its environmental permit. However at the time of the incident, the backup pump had been out of order for five months.

Penalty                          

Yorkshire Water was fined £1.1 million for committing the offence and ordered to pay £27,073.69 in costs.

Housing development firm fined £100,000 over construction site pollution

Miller Homes Ltd and Flannery Civil Engineering Ltd have been fined regarding a pollution incident that occurred at a housing development in Huddersfield. The companies admitted to the discharge of water, containing silt and sediment, from the construction site into a nearby watercourse without an environmental permit.

Flannery Civil Engineering Ltd had been appointed to construct four storage lagoons to reduce the risk of flooding. However, following a period of heavy rainfall in November 2013 a number of straw bales installed to prevent discharges were removed in order to drain the lagoons. Water containing silt and sediment then ran into the watercourse, affecting water quality.

Penalty

Miller Homes Ltd was fined £100,000 and ordered to pay £2,901.03 in costs.

Flannery Civil Engineering Ltd was fined £9,000.

Glastonbury Festival fined for causing pollution

The organisers of Glastonbury Festival have been fined for pollution offences involving human sewage.

In June 2014 more than 4km of the Whitelake River was polluted after approximately 20,000 gallons of untreated sewage escaped from a temporary storage tank. The pollution killed more than 40 fish, effectively wiping out the local trout population.

The Environment Agency monitors water quality in the Whitelake River throughout the festival using telemetry equipment positioned upstream and downstream of the festival site. A festival environmental team undertakes further monitoring and were expected to inform the Environment Agency of any pollution identified.

Bristol Magistrates Court heard how the music festival’s monitoring team failed to alert the Environment Agency after sewage leaked into a tributary of the Whitelake River. This failure to alert the Agency delayed the response to the incident, causing a serious deterioration in water quality.

Breach

Glastonbury Festival Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching regulations 12(1)(b) and 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.

• Regulation 12(b) prohibits the water discharge or groundwater activities except under an and in accordance with an environmental permit.
• Regulation 38(1)(a) makes it an offence to contravene Regulation 12(b).

Penalty

Judge Simon Cooper ruled that Glastonbury Festival’s actions after the fish kill had not been negligent and were of low culpability.

Hearing the organisers had been issued a caution after the 2010 festival, he ordered that a fine of £12,000 payable along with £19,000 costs for the two offences.