The Environment Agency has just issued new guidance to water companies notifying them that they will be exempt from their permit obligations to discharge treated effluent from waste water treatment works to surface water or groundwater in the event of “supply chain failures” to obtain the necessary treatment chemicals.

Normally, under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 the water companies need a permit which contains conditions controlling the quality of the treated effluent they can discharge from their waste water treatment works.

The new guidance just issued in the form of a regulatory position statement (RPS)by the Agency states:

“You may not be able to comply with your permit if you cannot get the chemicals you use to treat the effluent you discharge because of:

• the UK’s new relationship with the EU
• coronavirus (COVID-19)
• other unavoidable supply chain failures, for example the failure of a treatment chemical supplier”

The EA has told water companies that as long as they follow the conditions in the RPS they can discharge effluent without meeting the conditions in their permits.

They must first get prior written agreement from their Environment Agency water company account manager before using the RPS and demonstrate that they have taken “all reasonable steps to comply” with their permit. Reasonable steps include:

• contingency planning to avoid or minimise disruption to business
• response planning to minimise the impact and duration of not complying with permit

The water companies will be required to contact the Environment Agency when they have at least 2 weeks’ supply of chemicals left and you are unlikely to get enough further supplies.

The Agency is also advising them to prioritise using the chemicals they have, as far as is practicable, to treat the effluent at the waste water treatment works which have the greatest potential to cause environmental harm.

They will also need to contact the Agency to discuss how to prioritise using chemicals and apply the joint Water UK and Environment Agency risk assessment.

The assessment identifies 3 categories of waste water treatment works :

A: low risk – protecting discharges from these WwTW is less critical and likely to have low environmental and downstream abstraction impact

B: medium risk – you should protect discharges from these WwTW for as long as possible

C: high risk – it is critical you protect discharges from these WwTW, they are likely to have a high environmental or downstream abstraction impact

The guidance says the water companies must give “highest priority” to using chemicals for category C works and that the RPS cannot be used this for discharges from category C works “because the risk is too great.”

The water companies will also need to contact the Agency in the event that their chemical supplies “will not adequately treat all category C works.”

The Agency said it “will withdraw this RPS on 31 December 2021 unless we extend it.”

Water UK – issue due to nationwide driver shortage 

In response to the Defra time-limited Regulatory Position Statement with regard to water and sewerage company effluent discharges and the current shortage of international drivers, a spokesperson for Water UK, said:

“We are currently experiencing some disruption to the supply in England of ferric sulphate, a chemical used at some drinking and wastewater treatment sites.

“This will not affect the supply of drinking water. As a precaution, however, we are monitoring the situation due to the use of ferric sulphate in some waste treatment works. We are working closely with government and our chemical suppliers to ensure disruption is minimised.

“This issue has arisen due to a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK. There is no shortage of ferric sulphate in factories; the issue is solely one of distribution.”