The Environment Agency has said that as the water and wastewater companies’ environmental performance comes under more scrutiny, the scrutiny is “beginning to show cause for concern.”

The comments come in the publication today of the Environment Agency’s report on the 2013 environmental performance of the nine companies which mainly operate in England and provide both water and sewerage services to customers.

In 2011 the Agency introduced the Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) as a tool for comparing performance between water companies and across years. In it the Agency uses six environmental indicators which it says provides a meaningful and comparable overview of performance across the nine water companies.

The indicators and their associated metrics are set for the duration of the current asset management period (AMP) and are absolute rather than relative. The report says that all the companies should therefore be able to achieve good performance against these indicators by 2015. The report states:

“If companies are to achieve the aims we set out when we introduced the EPA then we will need to see considerable improvement in 2014 performance.”

Performance expectations

In 2013 the Agency wrote to all companies setting out its expectations on a number of areas including operational performance, summarised as:

• A plan in place to achieve 100 per cent compliance for all licences and permits.
• Reducing category one and two pollution incidents, trending towards zero by 2020.
• Trend to minimise all pollution incidents (category one to three) by 2020 with at least a third reduction compared to 2012 figures.
• High levels of self-reporting of pollution incidents with at least 75 per cent of incidents self-reported by 2020.
• Management of sewage sludge treatment and re-use should not cause pollution and must follow the Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations and the Code of Practice for Managing Sewage Sludge, Slurry and Silage or Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR).
• Environmental improvement schemes (e.g. Asset Management Plan, Water Resource Management Plans) are planned well and delivered as planned.

2013 performance on water quality incidents “disappointing”

The report says that generally, 2013 performance on water quality incidents was disappointing. Between 2005 and 2010 the numbers of serious (category one or two) incidents across all nine water companies taken together fell markedly, while  2011 saw a sharp rise which appeared to be brought back under control in 2012.

However numbers have risen again for most companies in 2013 so the total for all nine water companies is almost 50 per cent greater than the previous year. The report says:

“This is moving away from our expectation of a trend toward zero by 2020. We have asked companies to reassure us that they have plans to bring this back under control and we will be tracking progress against this during 2014.”

The Agency said that without a rapid response, relatively minor events can escalate and the opportunity for mitigation measures is often lost – which is why it seeks high levels of self-reporting of incidents, where water companies report before a member of the public or third party does. Self reporting remains steady at 66% across all companies. However, the range for individual companies is variable – 39% to 80%. The Agency has told all the companies it expects them to achieve a self-reporting target of 75% by 2020, commenting: “ Clearly some have more to do than others to achieve this.”

Serious pollution incidents: “majority of firms saw drop in performance”

The EPA shows individual water companies’ performance against three pollution incident indicators: all incidents, serious incidents and self-reporting. The Environment Agency said of greatest concern are serious incidents where the majority of companies (six out of nine) saw a drop in performance. Compliance with numeric waste water discharge permits was 97.4 per cent in 2013, meaning that around 90 sewage treatment works failed to comply with their permit conditions. The report states:

“Companies will need to work hard to improve this performance if they are to meet our expectations.”

“Only two companies achieved better compliance with discharge permits in 2013 compared with 2012. Whilst the drop in compliance for the other seven was for a variety of reasons we expect all companies to improve their performance in 2014. “

The report concludes by saying that the water industry no longer has the adverse impact on the environment that it had in the past which the Agency welcomes. However, the Agency is clearly concerned about aspects of the companies’ overall performance, commenting:

“ As pressures on our environment and societal expectations increase and technology improves, companies’ performance comes under more scrutiny. And that scrutiny is beginning to show cause for concern. We need to be reassured this is not an indication that the environment is slipping down some companies’ priority lists.”

“If companies are to achieve the aims we set out when we introduced the EPA then we will need to see considerable improvement in 2014 performance.”

Click here to download the EA Report Environmental performance of the water and sewerage companies in 2013