Advances in Water Treatment and Enviromental Management

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP: THE ROLE OF THE NRA 7be extremely interesting. This report is due to be published towards theend of 1991.DISCHARGE CONSENTSArising from the duties of the NRA to maintain and improve water quality isa requirement to control and remedy pollution. The Water Act in Sections107 and 108 sets out some of the major powers available to the NRA toachieve this objective.The main thrust of the NRA’s ability to act arises from the fact that, exceptfor consented discharges, it is an offence to cause or permit poisonous,noxious or pollution matter or solid waste matter to enter controlled waters,and the NRA is able to prosecute those who commit such offences. It isclear that the NRA intends to use these powers to the utmost, an examplebeing the vigorous prosecution of Shell U.K. following an oil pipeline fractureunder the River Mersey which led to the imposition of a £1M fine.Effluents from industrial firms and sewage treatment works in liquid formare disposed of to water courses, and under Section 108 of the Act, suchdischarges are permitted provided a consent has been obtained from theNRA. The consenting system has operated for many years under previouslegislation but it became apparent, soon after the NRA was formed, that ithad inherited a wide variety of such consents. Very large numbers of consentshad been issued by the former organisations, River Boards, River Authoritiesand Water Authorities and many been changed according to various criteriaover the years. For example, in the late 1970s and early 1980s many existingconsent conditions were “rationalised” in order to reflect the currentperformance of sewage works. Furthermore, previous legislation had notcovered such a wide variety of waters as are now designated“controlledwaters” with the result that upon the enactment of the 1989 Water Act,many discharges which were previously outside of statutory control, wererapidly brought into such control and had to be given “deemed” statuspending the determination of conditions. In other words, such dischargeswere declared legal but with no conditions attached. These dischargesincluded many coastal outfalls, which were exempted from control until1987 and a large number of previously illegal discharges, including stormsewage overflows, which required consents upon the enactment of the WaterAct.The proliferation of such a variety of consents is clearly undesirable andtaking into the fact that some £20 bn of expenditure has been committed tothe improvement of existing discharges over the next few years by the waterindustry, some consistency of approach is highly desirable. Consequently