Cost of compliance far outweighs the risk of getting caught
Fifteen years ago MPs delivered a stern warning to the Environment Agency that its failure to enforce the rules meant businesses were polluting with impunity.
Data uncovered by The Times suggests that the agency is still failing in some areas for the same reason. Installing equipment to prevent the contamination of water, air or land with toxic pollutants can be very expensive and if the chance of being inspected, let alone prosecuted, is very low, some businesses will avoid spending the money.
Agency staff warned of this problem last year in a report on efforts to stop farms polluting the River Axe in southwest England with slurry and fertiliser. The report said there had been “very little EA regulatory activity within the catchment during the last 15 years following a national steer to allow the voluntary approach”.
The Axe is officially rated as in “unfavourable and declining condition”, and the agency secured £120,000 of local funding to increase farm inspections in the catchment. Ninety-five per cent of the farms it visited were failing to comply with rules on storing silage, slurry and oil, and 49 per cent were polluting the river.
The report said: “Most farmers were aware of the requirement for four months’ slurry storage but often admitted to taking a business risk by not investing in infrastructure because there was little regulatory presence of the Environment Agency.”
The increased inspections yielded clear improvements in the area as farmers spent almost £4 million on building 33 slurry stores and other measures to reduce pollution. Every £1 spent on extra agency inspections prompted £33 of investment in tackling the problem, the report concluded.
Yet across England’s 106,000 farms the agency has cut inspections by two thirds, down from 905 in 2014-15 to 308 in 2019-20. At that rate, the average farm can expect to be inspected once every 344 years.
The agency has blamed lack of funding. Although it charges water companies to cover the costs of regulation, it cannot charge most farms.
In a letter to The Times last year Emma Howard Boyd, chairwoman of the agency, complained that its funding from the government to protect the environment had been cut by 57 per cent, from £120 million in 2010 to £52 million. She called on the government to “step up to the plate” and increase funding, but this year the figure has risen only slightly, to £54 million.
Lack of money is not the only problem, however, as conservation groups believe that the agency is also under political and industry pressure not to be too hard on businesses.
The agency has recorded 137 breaches of water pollution rules for farming since the rules came into force in April 2018, but has yet to bring a single prosecution or issue a civil fine.
Guy Linley-Adams, a solicitor for Salmon & Trout Conservation, said: “The agency has been hobbled by central government. Particularly in relation to farming, the government doesn’t want it to be a tough regulator. The farming lobby is huge and farmers enjoy strong political support and as a result tend to get off lightly.”
He said the agency also had a duty under the Deregulation Act 2015 to “have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth” when regulating businesses. “The problem is that many governments, not just Conservative but Labour before, have allowed the agency to become weak.
“In fact they have ordered the agency to become weak in a general drive to soft-touch regulation. You have to be really, really bad to get prosecuted these days.”
The Environment Agency has in recent years increased its charges to water companies to fund regulation but reported this month that the number of water pollution incidents caused by the companies had risen to 2,024 last year, the highest since 2014. Four of the nine water companies are rated poor or requiring improvement, the worst result since 2011.
Mr Linley-Adams said that the lack of progress in improving water quality was due partly to a decision in 2009 to allow “operator self-monitoring” by water companies.
“We told them at the time that this was like opening the cookie jar and leaving the room,” he said. “The agency said ‘no, no it won’t be like that, the water companies will be watched, they won’t misbehave’. But sure enough, one of the biggest water companies in the country was systematically cheating the system for years.”
Read the full story from The Times
Farmers to be stripped of subsidies for polluting in post-Brexit scheme
Farmers will be stripped of subsidies if they pollute rivers under government plans to link payments to water quality. Figures obtained by The Times show that farms are causing a rising number of pollution incidents but rarely face significant consequences.
The move comes as the Environment Agency has cut farm inspections in England by two thirds since 2014-15 and is failing to enforce rules introduced in 2018 to stop farmers contaminating rivers with slurry and fertiliser.
A shift to intensive dairy farming, with hundreds of cows housed in giant sheds, is contributing to the problem. Pollution from farms and water company sewer overflows are the main reasons that 84 per cent of rivers fail to meet the government’s target for good ecological standards.
The agency has blamed its failure to stem the increase in farm pollution partly on a lack of resources. Its budget for environment protection has been cut by more than half since 2010.
The government is developing a new approach in which farm subsidies after Brexit, managed under the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs), will give farmers incentives to stop polluting. The scheme will replace the EU’s common agricultural policy, under which about two thirds of the £3 billion that farmers receive annually is given per acre in “direct payments”.
The new system of “paying public money for public goods” is being piloted from next year before being rolled out in late 2024. Direct payments will be phased out over a seven-year “agricultural transition period” between 2021 and 2027. Emma Howard Boyd, the agency chairwoman, said that it was working with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to ensure that ELMs reduced farm pollution.
“If you are being paid for your services as a farmer you have to have the right impact on the environment,” she told The Times. “We shouldn’t be . . . paying out money to a farmer who is not delivering baseline environmental outcomes and protection.”
Farm inspections by the agency fell from 905 in 2014-15 to 308 in 2019-20. It detected 960 pollution incidents causing environmental damage on farms last year, up from 719 the year before.
The agency has recorded 137 breaches of farming rules on water quality which came into force in April, 2018, but has brought no prosecutions or issued any fines. It has sent 14 warning letters and says the rest of the breaches resulted in “advice and guidance”, which it claims all the farms have heeded.
The Times
BP, Eni, Equinor, Shell and Total team up to develop North Sea carbon capture infrastructure
A number of the oil and gas industry’s biggest players have joined forces to speed up the decarbonisation of industry and power.
The North Endurance Partnership (NEP) brings together BP, Eni, Equinor, Shell, Total and National Grid with the aim of developing offshore carbon dioxide (CO2) transport and storage infrastructure in the UK North Sea.
The initiative will aid plans to establish decarbonised industrial clusters in the north-east of England as part of the proposed Net Zero Teesside (NZT) and Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH) projects.
Both schemes aim to go live by 2026 with the goal of achieving net zero as early as 2030 through a combination of carbon capture, hydrogen and fuel-switching.
If successful, it’s claimed NEP, which is being headed up BP, will decarbonise almost half of the UK’s industrial emissions.
CO2 emissions will be transported from NZT and ZCH via an offshore pipeline network to offshore geological storage ducts beneath the UK North Sea.
As part of the launch, NEP has submitted a bid for funding through Phase 2 of the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge in an effort to accelerate the deployment of the grid.
The application follows approval by industry regulator the Oil and Gas Authority of the addition of BP and Equinor, alongside National Grid, to the Endurance carbon storage licence.
The £170 million Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge is part of a wider £4.7 billion Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge Fund set up by the UK Government with the intention of addressing industrial and societal challenges using domestic research and development.
Energy Voice
A pledge of 40,000 meals for vulnerable children made by Cumbrian gas company
Cadent, Cumbria’s gas network and major local employer, has pledged to fund 40,000 meals as it joins the amazing nationwide effort to stop vulnerable children and families going hungry.
Individuals and businesses up and down the country are rallying to a cause championed by Manchester-born footballer Marcus Rashford MBE.
Cadent, which manages the underground gas network in the England star’s home city and across North West England, has confirmed a donation to the charity he supports, FareShare.
“We’re one big family here at Cadent. Looking out for and looking after people – especially those in vulnerable situations – is just what we do,” said Steve Fraser, chief executive. “We don’t want to see anyone go hungry and really feel this donation is the right thing to do.”
West Moreland Gazette
‘Zombie batteries’ causing hundreds of waste fires, experts warn
“Zombie batteries” are causing hundreds of fires a year at waste and recycling sites, industry experts have warned. They are urging people to ensure dead batteries are not thrown away in household rubbish or recycling.
Batteries discarded with general waste are likely to be crushed or punctured during collection and processing, according to the Environmental Services Association (Esa). Some types, particularly lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride batteries, can ignite or explode when damaged and set fire to other materials. In some cases, this leads to incidents requiring dozens of firefighters and the evacuation of residents, potentially putting lives at risk.
Lithium-ion batteries are believed to have been responsible for at least 250 fires at recycling and waste facilities across the UK in the year to March 2020. These fires represented more than a third of all fires reported, up from a quarter the year before.
Lithium-ion batteries are typically found in laptops, tablets, mobile phones, Bluetooth devices, shavers, electric toothbrushes, power tools and e-cigarettes. They are increasingly prevalent in devices, says Esa, meaning the problem is likely to get worse unless people change their behaviour.
People in the UK throw away 22,000 tonnes of batteries a year, according to Esa, but only 45 per cent are recycled properly.
“Fires caused by carelessly discarded batteries endanger lives, cause millions of pounds of damage and disrupt waste services,” said Jacob Hayler, Esa’s executive director. “We urge consumers to please recycle batteries responsibly by using battery recycling points in shops and recycling centres, or a separate battery kerbside collection if available.”
The Guardian
Utility Week’s weekend press round-up is a curation of articles in the national newspapers relating to the energy and water sector. The views expressed are not those of Utility Week or Faversham House.