New publications this month:

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Flooding

Programme of flood and coastal erosion risk management schemes

The Environment Agency has published a policy paper on how they will manage the £2.5 million government investment to reduce flood risk and coastal erosion in England.

Lead local flood authority: duty to maintain a register

Lead Local Flood Authorities have a duty to maintain a register of river’s structures or features which may influence flood risk and include information on their ownership and condition. This publication provides a template register that could potentially be used.

Regulatory Position Statement (RPS)

Leaving decommissioned pipes in excavations: RPS 8

This RPS permits decommissioned pipes to be left in excavations. It has been updated to remove references to asbestos.

Groundwater Management

The Environment Agency’s approach to groundwater protection

This publication sets out details the Environment Agency’s approach to managing and protecting groundwater. This replaces the Groundwater protection: Principles and practice (GP3) document.

Protect groundwater and prevent groundwater pollution

This guidance document aims to advise individuals on how certain activities can affect groundwater, the vulnerability of their land to groundwater pollution, any authorisations needed to discharge/abstract from groundwater and information on groundwater protection zones.

Groundwater activity exclusions from environmental permits

This document provides information on the groundwater activities exempt from requiring an environmental permit.

Groundwater protection technical guidance

This guidance document is aimed at groundwater specialists. It provides information on substances which could affect the quality or quantity of groundwater for example, information is provided on the discernibility of hazardous substances, what inputs can be made to groundwater and when geological formations can be determined as permanently unsuitable.

Research and analysis Reports

The EA has published three research reports this month on:

• Effects of run-of-river hydroelectric power schemes on small in-stream animals
• The early stages of implementing geological disposal: regulatory use of geoscientific information
• Understanding eel and fish behaviour to improve protection and passage at river structures
• Understanding eel and fish behaviour to improve protection and passage at river structures

DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY (BEIS)  

Contracts for Difference (CFD)

Contracts for Difference exemption: electricity supply estimates

This technical note estimates supplies to energy-intensive industries exempt from the indirect costs of the CFD regime.

Contracts for Difference: Allocation Framework for the 2017 Allocation Round

This document details the rues for the second CFD Allocation Round (the Allocation Framework)

Second CFD Allocation Round – Statutory Notices

This document provides statutory notices in support of to launch the second CFD Allocation Round .

Contracts for Difference: standard terms and conditions, version 2, March 2017

This document sets out standard terms and conditions for the second CFD Allocation Round.

Green Deal

Green Deal Code of Practice (Version 5)

This draft document has been published with the intention of replacing version 4 of the Green Deal Code of Practice.

SENTENCING COUNCIL

The Sentencing Council has published two sentencing guidelines this month:

• The Definitive sentencing guidelines on reducing sentences in the case of guilty pleas. These guidelines can be used from 1 June 2017.
• The Definitive sentencing guidelines on sentencing children and young people. These guidelines can be used from 1 June 2017.

DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS AND THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Reservoir emergencies: on-site plans

These documents provide guidance on how reservoir operators should prepare on-site plans for potential emergency situations.

SCOTTISH ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AGENCY (SEPA)

Guidance on monitoring for heterogeneous Radium-226 sources resulting from historic luminising or waste disposal sites

This document provides guidance on best practice techniques for carrying out radiological walkover surveys concerning gamma emitting radionuclides, specifically radium 226. This guidance is applicable in Scotland only.

Regulatory Position Statement: Use of Crop Residues in Anaerobic Digestion Plants

SEPA has published a regulatory position statement (RPS) in relation to the use of crop residues in Anaerobic Digestion Plants. If this RPS is followed, this process will be exempt from needing a waste management licence to process this material.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DAERA) (NI)

NI Plant Health Risk Register

This document provides an updated list of plant species that are currently of concern to the health of individuals and the environment.

Environmental Guidance for Ports and Harbours

This document provides guidance to port and harbor authorities on their environmental obligations.

Thames Water fined £20 million for sewage spill

Thames Water Utilities has pleaded guilty to breaching the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 on six counts of causing significant pollution to the River Thames. The company was been fined over £20 million at Aylesbury Crown Court. These offences were caused by negligence and led to the death of wildlife and distress to the public.

All six pollution offences caused widespread, repeated, sustained and avoidable pollution at sites in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire from 2012 to 2014. Repeated illegal discharges of sewage resulted in major environmental damage. In one incident, sewage was visible along 14 kilometres of the river. Riverside residents, farmers, local businesses, anglers, and recreational river users were all affected.

It was later discovered that untreated sewage was diverted away from the sewage treatment process, although the incoming sewage flow was well within the designed capacity of the treatment works.

Penalty

Thames Water Utilities Ltd was fined a total of £20,361,140.06 including costs.

Waste firm AWM fined £125,000 for causing odour pollution

Associated Waste Management has been fined £125,000 and sentenced at Leeds Crown Court after repeatedly causing odour problems between June 2012 and October 2013 at its Bradford and Leeds sites. 75 odour assessments were carried out by the Environment Agency and most recorded smells that were likely to cause offence to human senses.

Leeds

The Environment Agency suspended the company’s permit for the Leeds facility in October 2013, preventing it from receiving any more waste until it had improved its odour management plan. This new plan was approved that month and the permit was reinstated.

Bradford

AWM’s Bradford site prompted residents to complain on 49 separate dates. One resident complained that the odour was so bad that it made him feel sick.

An inspection visit in March 2013 revealed that the company was not closing the shutters on a tipping shed used by bin wagons, which allowed the smell of rotting waste to leave the site.

In July, the Environment Agency served an enforcement notice on the firm that required it to improve its odour management . The company’s first revision of this document, submitted in August, was rejected as inadequate and it wasn’t until October that a new plan was approved.

Penalty

AWM was fined £75,000 for the Leeds offence, and £50,000 for the Bradford offence. It was also ordered to pay £75,000 in legal costs.

In mitigation, the company told the court that it had relied upon an external company that had approached it regarding odour suppression equipment, which had not worked.

No profit for waste couple

The operator and the landowner of an illegal waste site has been fined £66,493 at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court.

George Nicholas James Dench pleaded guilty to running an illegal waste site and failing to comply with an enforcement notice to remove the waste. It was found that Mr Dench was storing up to 14,700 tonnes of waste illegally.

The owner of the land, Ms. Williams, pleaded guilty to permitting her land to be used as an illegal waste site and ignoring an enforcement notice the clear the land.

The Environment Agency found that the waste had been deposited there for over 2 years.

Exemptions registered by Ms. Williams set certain conditions relating to the use of certain types of inert waste in construction and limits in how much can be used. All were breached.

Penalty

Mr Dench was fine £14,353 and £8,103 in costs for the Environment Agency offence and £9,568 and £730 in costs by Essex County Council.

Ms. Williams was fined £14,775 and £8,103 in costs for the Environment Agency offence and £9,850 plus £750 costs by Essex County Council.