WildFish court case update: customers should not pay for spill clean up
The judicial review challenge to Defra’s Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan by environmental campaign group, WildFish, was heard in court last week.
WildFish called on the government to:
• enforce the law (in existence since 1994) requiring water companies to prevent the discharge of untreated sewage into rivers, unless there is a risk of sewer flooding due to exceptional rainfall. WildFish said the law “also imposes a duty (not just a power) on the secretary of state and Ofwat to enforce that requirement”;
• get rid of the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, “which effectively allows water companies to continue to break the law for a further 27 years until 2050 and develop a plan that is in line with the existing law”; and
• ensure water companies foot the bill for any increased sewage capacity required by the law, not their customers.
In a statement issued on Friday updating on the case, WildFish reported the Government argued that its Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan does not deal with existing breaches of the 1994 law.
WildFish reflected: “If accepted by the Court this would appear to mean that much of the storm sewage pollution that is plaguing English and Welsh rivers must now be brought to an end under pre-existing statutory obligations. Not on the timetable set down by the Government in its Plan, which appeared to extend time for compliance, in some cases, to 2050.
“If dealt with under pre-existing statutory obligations this would mean the costs of complying with the 1994 Regulations would not be paid for by extra increases to consumers’ water bills. They would be paid for by the companies themselves.
“WildFish believes that this confirms that Ofwat now has no choice but to get on and enforce the Urban Wastewater Treatment (England and Wales) Regulations 1994. The Water Industry Act 1991, itself amended by the 1994 Regulations, is crystal clear. Ofwat must enforce the law that only permits storm sewage to be discharged following exceptional rainfall.
“Whatever is left for the Pastplan to deal with, after currently illegal discharges are dealt with, can be acted on much sooner than the drawn-out Plan targets.”
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