Water Framework Directive Prevent deterioration in any water body - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Water Framework Directive

• Prevent deterioration in any water body
• Aim to achieve Good Ecological Status (GES) in all

water bodies by 2015

• we are currently only at 23% GES in water bodies in

England and Wales

Action to date to tackle point source/diffuse pollution in urban/agri

• [point source progress]
• [non agri diffuse]
• Agri diffuse – ECSFDI and agri environment

schemes

WPZs

• WPZs to address water pollution and

hydromorphological damage that leads to the failure of WFD objectives where we can show that existing reg and vol/supportive measures are or will be insufficient to achieve desired

• utcomes [nb ‘or will be’ goes further than

condoc language]

WPZs continued

• WPZs can be used to control activities that can cause water pollution within a particular area.

They can be applied over any spatial scale and target almost any pollutant and polluting activity across any business sector

• We are working very closely with the EA, the competent authority for proposing WPZs and

enforcing their requirements. The Environment Agency will identify the need for a WPZ, the pollutants to be controlled, the activities to be prohibited or managed and the method of enforcing the requirements within that zone.

Timeline

• Summary of responses published – June 2009

Broad support for WPZs, but a number of

• utstanding concerns/issues that Defra will

take forward in working with stakeholders

• SI comes into force Oct 2009
• Aiming for Stat Guidance by Oct 2009

Response to some of the headline consultation messages

• Stat Guidance will cover diffuse and point

source pollution from agri and urban sources

• Specific WPZs will not be included in first

round RBMPs

• Appeals – a lot of support, Defra still

considering

• Defra will produce an IA for the SI
• We do see SSSIs as a priority
• EA resourcing

Response to some of the headline consultation messages continued

Stakeholder engagement

• There are many outstanding issues we need to

work through before finalising Stat Guidance

• We feel a small focused stakeholder group

would work best but we will return to this