Three water companies and the Environment Agency itself have been issued with non-compliance notices for failures to meet requirements of the Reservoirs Act 1975 during the last two years – the Agency is the enforcement authority for the Act.

Details of the non-compliance notices are contained in the newly-published Agency’s biennial report on reservoir safety for the period 1 April 2013 - 31 December 2014 which looks at the work the Agency has done to secure compliance with the requirements of the Act in England.

Under the Reservoirs Act 1975 the EA has responsibility for maintaining a register of all reservoirs  and ensuring that undertakers (i.e. owner, operator or user) appoint a construction engineer to design and supervise the construction or alteration of large raised reservoirs. Other responsibilities include:

• encourage undertakers to comply with the Act by engaging with them at regular intervals;
• make sure that undertakers appoint a supervising engineer for their reservoirs;
• make sure that undertakers have their reservoirs inspected by inspecting engineers;
• make sure that undertakers carry out any necessary investigations, repairs, improvements or studies required by inspecting engineers;
• appoint engineers and take any other action necessary in an emergency, to make sure that safety measures are completed;
• ensure that the Agency itself observes and complies with the requirements of the Act for our own reservoirs.

Offences under the Reservoirs Act are now primarily strict liability - meaning that for an offence to be committed, the mere fact that the non-compliance occurred is sufficient, rather than there being a need to prove wilful default and no reasonable excuse.

Out of a total of 2001 Large Raised Reservoirs (LRRs) the number of reservoirs without a supervising engineer appointed has decreased from 12 to 8 during the period, while the number of reservoirs with an inspection due and no inspecting engineer appointed has increased from 12 to 14.

The water companies are responsible for 646 LRRs in England (32.3% of the total), while the Environment Agency is itself the undertaker for a further 209.

During the period Northumbrian Water and South East Water received warning letters for their Grassholme and Arlington reservoirs respectively for failure to carry safety measures into effect – however, both companies are now compliant with the Act.

Bristol Water is separately currently under investigation by the Agency for non-compliance  - failure to carry safety measures into effect by the due date.

The Environment Agency effectively warned itself for non-compliance in the following two separate instances:

• Failure to carry safety measures into effect by the due date at its Kidderminster Flood Storage Reservoir
• Failure to carry safety measures into effect by the due date at its Saintbridge 2 Gloucester reservoir

The Agency said it is now compliant on both – and that written warnings had been issued and internal reviews conducted in each case.

The Agency also commenced the process of assessing whether all 2,001 reservoirs in England were high-risk i.e. where an uncontrolled release of water could endanger human life. By 31 December 2014 the EA had designated 112 reservoirs as not high-risk, reducing the amount of regulation at these sites. The provisional designation process is expected to be completed by Summer 2015.

Click here to download the report .