Guidance

Water and sewerage company effluent discharges: supply chain failure RPS B2

Updated 15 October 2021

This guidance was withdrawn on 4 January 2022

The Environment Agency has withdrawn the regulatory position statement ‘Water and sewerage company effluent discharges - supply chain failure: RPS B2’ because it has expired.

Applies to England

You need a permit under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 to discharge treated effluent from a waste water treatment works (WwTW) to surface water or groundwater. Permits contain conditions that control the quality of the effluent you can discharge.

You may not be able to comply with your permit if you cannot get the chemicals you use to treat the effluent, to reduce phosphorus, 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

This regulatory position statement (RPS) does not alter your legal obligations under your permit or relevant legislation. However, if you follow the conditions in this RPS the Environment Agency will not normally take enforcement action for discharging effluent in breach of the conditions in your permit.

You must get written agreement from your Environment Agency water company account manager before you use this RPS.

When this RPS applies

This RPS only applies to water and sewerage company discharges from WwTW that cannot comply with permit conditions because of a shortage of chemicals to treat effluent due to:

• the UK’s new relationship with the EU
• coronavirus (COVID-19)
• other unavoidable failure in the supply chain

You must demonstrate that you have taken all reasonable steps to comply with your permit. Reasonable steps include:

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

This RPS does not apply to any other activity, even if it is under the same legislation. You may still need other permits or licences for other activities you carry out.

Conditions you must comply with

You must contact your Environment Agency water company account manager if you think you will not be able to comply with your permit. You must contact them when you have at least 2 weeks’ supply of chemicals left and you are unlikely to get enough further supplies.

You must prioritise using the chemicals you have, as far as is practicable, to treat the effluent at WwTW which have the greatest potential to cause environmental harm.

Contact your Environment Agency water company account manager to discuss how to prioritise using chemicals. Apply the joint Water UK and Environment Agency risk assessment. This is available from the Environment Agency. The assessment identifies 3 categories of WwTW. Use one of these 3 categories for your WwTW:

• 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

You must give highest priority to using chemicals for category C WwTW.

You cannot use this RPS for discharges from category C WwTW because the risk is too great.

Contact your water company account manager if your chemical supplies will not adequately treat all category C WwTW.

You must resume use of chemicals to treat effluent as soon as is practicable.

You must comply with all the other requirements of your environmental permit.

You must keep records that show why you needed to use this RPS. For example, records of:

• staff absences
• contractors being unavailable
• supply chain failures

You must keep these records for 2 years after this RPS has expired, including any extensions to it. You must make them available to the Environment Agency on request.

You must make sure your activities do not endanger human health or the environment.

You must make sure that your discharge does not cause or risk causing:

• significant environmental damage, including causing environmental damage as defined by the Environmental Damage (Prevention and Remediation) (England) Regulations 2015
• significant pollution or significant harm to water, air, soil, plants or animals

Enforcement

An RPS means that the Environment Agency will not normally take enforcement action against you provided:

• your activity meets the description set out in this RPS
• you comply with the conditions set out in this RPS
• your activity does not, and is not likely to, cause environmental pollution or harm human health
• you have taken all reasonable steps to comply with your permit

If you operate under this RPS, but think you may no longer be able to comply with its conditions, you must tell the Environment Agency immediately.

When to check back

We will withdraw this RPS on 31 December 2021 unless we extend it. After this date you must have a permit that authorises the activity covered by this RPS or stop the activity.

Contact the Environment Agency

Contact your water company account manager to get written agreement to use this RPS.

General enquiries

National Customer Contact Centre
PO Box 544
Rotherham
S60 1BY

Email enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk

Telephone 03708 506 506

Telephone from outside the UK (Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm GMT) +44 (0) 114 282 5312

Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.