The number of reservoirs in England with overdue safety measures needed to be put in place has increased from 40 to 48 in the last two years, according to the  Environment Agency’s latest report on reservoir safety published yesterday.

Introducing the biennial report for the period 1 January 2015 - 31 December 2016, the Agency said that while it had seen significant improvements in the level of compliance with the Reservoirs Act 1975 and improved emergency planning over the last two years there is still work to do.

Owners and operators of reservoirs must follow the requirements of the Reservoirs Act – and all those with large raised reservoirs (i.e. reservoirs with a volume of at least 25,000 cubic metres above ground level)must now report any ‘incident’ at their reservoir to the Environment Agency.  Failure to do so could lead to the Environment Agency taking enforcement action.

Up until July 2013, such incidents were only reported on a voluntary basis - it is now a criminal offence not to report such incidents. Post-incident reporting for small raised reservoirs i.e. those not covered by the legislation - in England remains voluntary.

According to the report, non-compliance in 2015 has been at its lowest ever recorded levels due to a mixture of advisory and regulatory action taken by the Agency, which issued fewer notices and no prosecutions.

There were 11 reported incidents during 2015 and 2016. The Agency said these are usually limited in scale and do not result in a complete failure of the dam or reservoir. They are managed by draining down water from the reservoir to take the water pressure off the dam so that suitable repairs can be made

Compared to the biennial report for the period ending 31 December 2014 the regulatory position is as follows:

• the number of reservoirs without a supervising engineer appointed has remained at eight although it is noted that these eight reservoirs are not the same as those reported previously;
• the number of reservoirs with an inspection due and no inspecting engineer appointed has reduced from 14 to 13;
• the number of reservoirs with an inspection overdue by more than a year has increased from zero to seven, all of which have an inspecting engineer appointed. In some cases inspections have been deferred pending the outcome of a representation or appeal of a 'high-risk' designation;
• the number of reservoirs with overdue safety measures has increased from 40 to 48. The reasons for this include that some reservoirs with safety measures have been subject to representations or appeals against a 'high-risk' designation and completion of those measures may have been deferred pending the outcome;

During the period the Agency has continued the process of assessing whether all 2020 large raised reservoirs in England were high-risk. By 31 December 2016 it had designated 199 reservoirs as not high-risk, reducing the level of regulation at these sites.

The Environment Agency is itself responsible for 211 large raised reservoirs in England – all Environment Agency reservoirs were compliant in 2015 and 2016.

The report also shows that 145 reservoirs were under construction as at 31^st December 2016 – this includes both new reservoirs and those being modified.

The Environment Agency issued 14 enforcement notices at 14 reservoirs in England between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2016. The report also records the number of post-incident reports the Agency had received.

Click here to download the EA’s Biennial report on reservoir safety 1 January 2015 - 31 December 2016