Back in November 2021, the Environment Act 2021 formally established the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP). The OEP is designed to protect and improve the environment by holding the government and other public authorities to account.
It seems that eight months on, and following from a complaint submitted by the Salmon & Trout Conservation UK group in 2021, the OEP is opening an investigation into the Government and the handling of the dumping of untreated sewage into rivers and seas in England. The investigation will look into whether Environment Secretary George Eustice, the Environment Agency and Ofwat have failed in their duty to manage water quality.
The OEP's statement announcing the investigation said: "The aims of the investigation are to determine whether these authorities have failed to comply with their respective duties in relation to the regulation, including the monitoring and enforcement, of water companies’ own duties to manage sewage. In doing so, we will seek to clarify the respective duties."
"Further, if there are found to be failures, our objective will be to improve regulation, leading to long term improvement in water quality."
This news comes after it was reported that there were 110,307 more sewage discharge incidents in 2020 than in 2019. To add to this, in January 2022, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) published a report stating that only "14% of English rivers meet good ecological status, with pollution from agriculture, sewage, roads and single-use plastics contributing to a dangerous 'chemical cocktail' coursing through our waterways." It added "Not a single river in England has received a clean bill of health for chemical contamination."
Discharges of sewage effluent into rivers and coastal waters in England are not allowed without a permit under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations SI 2016/1154. However, the discharge statistics show that there has been a big increase in discharge incidents, and the investigation will look into whether these discharges are being correctly regulated and monitored.
Helen Venn, Chief Regulatory Officer at the OEP, said: "We clearly do not know at this point what our findings will be or where the investigation will take us. It is possible that it could result in enforcement activity and / or in broader actions to improve the legal and / or regulatory systems. Our priority throughout will be to protect and improve the environment."
