New penalties including fines of up to €500,000 for local authorities that pollute water resources have been approved by the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley. Tim O'Brienreports.
Speaking at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Co Wexford yesterday, Mr Gormley said the fines were part of new regulations for local authority waste-water treatment plants.
Under a licensing system to be overseen by the EPA, limits on discharges from waste-water treatment plants to surface waters, such as rivers, canals and lakes, groundwaters and coastal waters, are to be imposed.
Local authorities will have to apply to the EPA for a licence to discharge and the EPA will stipulate conditions, as well as enforcing standards in line with various EU directives.
These include the water framework directive, as well as directives on dangerous substances, birds, groundwater, drinking water, urban waste-water, habitats and bathing water.
The fines for non-compliance range from €5,000 on a summary court conviction to €500,000 for a conviction on indictment - a level that would be applied to more serious issues of pollution.
However, unlike measures recently approved by the Minister for pollution associated with the EU nitrates directive, the new regulations do not specify jail terms for offenders.
Neither are there specific penalties for pollution caused by domestic septic tanks in the new regulations, but a spokesman for Mr Gormley said "all water pollution is illegal", and could be addressed by local authorities themselves and ultimately the courts.
Mr Gormley's announcement of the new regulations coincided with publication of the Environmental Protection Agency's Water Quality Report 2006. The report found evidence of pollution at almost 60 per cent of monitoring stations, and that 29 per cent of rivers and 8 per cent of lakes were affected by pollution.
Mr Gormley said it "just is not acceptable that our groundwaters are being polluted unnecessarily".
He said strict limits, monitored by the EPA, would be put in place for local authorities.
Referring to the water quality report, Mr Gormley said it showed the "very serious challenge which faces us in relation to curbing pollution of our water sources. Generally our water quality is of a decent standard but there is a small pocket of persistent polluters who need to be tackled."
Labour Party environment spokeswoman Joanna Tuffy said many of the problems identified in the water quality report had been caused by development in advance of adequate waste-water infrastructure.