Advances in Water Treatment and Enviromental Management

8 WATER TREATMENTthe Secretary of State asked the NRA to set up a policy group to examinethese issues and this will be reporting in the spring of this year. The groupis considering such matters as how the regulator and discharger shouldassess whether a particular discharge meets the terms of its consent; theextent to which consent requirements for different types of discharge shouldbe put on a common basis and how to justify any differences; how best toensure that discharges are properly classified as compliant or non-compliant;sampling frequencies; and the role of consent conditions in relation topolluting load. Information relating to consents is held on a public registeras are the results of monitoring both discharges and the aquatic environmentin general.POLLUTION INCIDENTSWhilst the NRA’s main thrust of pollution control is likely to be through theuse of the discharge consent system, polluting events will always occur. Inorder to reduce the effects of these upon the aquatic environment, and thedisruption to legitimate users of water that this entails, the NRA is alsoempowered to take action to both mitigate the consequences and take suchpreventative action as is available to it.Figure 1