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Consultation on Draft Guidance on the Groundwater Regulations 1998

I am writing to invite you to comment on the attached draft guidance on the Groundwater Regulations 1998.

The Groundwater Regulations complete transposition of the Groundwater Directive. Their purpose is to protect groundwater - an important source of drinking water - from contamination. The Regulations were made in November last year following extensive consultation and came into force on 1 April this year.

The Regulations effectively extend existing controls, contained in the Water Resources Act 1991, over the discharge of polluting matter to controlled waters (including groundwater). They require that disposal, or tipping for the purposes of disposal, to land of certain listed substances may be carried out only if prior authorisation has been given by the Environment Agency. Under the Regulations the Environment Agency has powers to issue notices to control activities other than disposal, where these are likely to result in an indirect discharge of a listed substance to groundwater. There is a prohibition on the entry of List I substances into groundwater.

The purpose of the guidance, when finalised, will be to explain the provisions of the Regulations and, where possible, how they will be implemented. However since, in determining applications, much depends on local, site-specific circumstances, the guidance can only be of a fairly general nature. The more detailed issues of implementation affecting individual sites are the responsibility of the Environment Agency, and for more detailed guidance, appropriate to particular disposal activities, it will be necessary to consult the Agency.

The guidance also sets out at Annex B some 79 substances, which the Agency proposes should be deemed List I substances for the purposes of the Regulations, and invites comments on them to be made to the Environment Agency.

It is the Department’s intention that the consultation process should be proactive, and to this end we intend to arrange consultation meetings for specific interest groups. If you wish to attend such a meeting it would be helpful if you would register your interest, together with any immediate comments, as soon as possible in the consultation period. We will then be able to advise you of relevant meetings as they are arranged. It must be borne in mind that the guidance is published in draft, and as such is subject to amendment during and after consultation. It should not be treated or used as final guidance.

Although the Regulations apply to the UK, the draft guidance refers to England and Wales only. It is understood that the Scottish Executive intends to publish parallel guidance for Scotland, and the Welsh Assembly may also choose to issue its own guidance in due course.

Attached is a list of those organisations and bodies that have been consulted. If there are others who you think should receive a copy of this consultation paper, please let me know as soon as possible.

The Department may wish to publish responses to this consultation, or deposit them in the Department’s library. If this is done, all responses received will be so published or deposited unless the respondent specifically asks for their response to be treated as confidential. Confidential responses will nevertheless be included in any statistical summary of numbers of comments and views expressed.

Please submit your response to this consultation as soon as possible, and in any event not later than 29 February 2000 to me at the above address tel: 020 7944 5355; fax: 020 7944 5209; e-mail: david.broyd@defra.gsi.gov.uk. If you wish to attend a meeting to discuss specific issues please contact Johanna Keech on tel: 020 7944 5356; fax: 020 7944 5209; e-mail: johanna.keech@defra.gsi.gov.uk. This letter and the guidance can also be found on the DETR website.

Yours faithfully
David Broyd

This document is made available in Adobe Acrobat format for downloading.
The Adobe Acrobat Reader can be freely downloaded.

• Covering Letter (as above) (19kb)
• Contents (6kb)
• Main Text (108kb)
• Consultation List (17kb)

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Published 1 December 1999

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