Jan. 12, 2004 -- The Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland has released a comprehensive water quality report for 2001, which is available on its web site.
The report can be accessed at http://www.ehsni.gov.uk/pubs/publications/Reg_WSD.pdf.
Under the Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999, the Department of the Environment (Northern Ireland) has a duty to promote the conservation of the water resources of Northern Ireland and the cleanliness of water in waterways and underground strata.
Most of this work is carried out by the Water Management Unit (WMU) of Environment and Heritage Service (EHS). EHS has recently published the report on the environmental regulation of Water Service (WS).
This comprehensive report sets out in detail the regulatory system that EHS uses to control the impact of WS discharges to the environment from waste water treatment works (WWTWs), sewerage systems and water treatment works (WTWs). It also provides details of WS compliance with EHS and European discharge standards for the year 2001, along with comprehensive information on WS's extensive plans for investment to improve discharge quality.
The report was the first of its kind on the performance of effluent discharges made by Water Service, an agency of the Department for Regional Development.
It provides a summary of the compliance of Water Service discharges with Registered Standards set by Environment and Heritage Service (EHS), an agency of the Department of the Environment, to control the quality of such discharges.
Discharges included are the effluents from 268 Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW) serving a population equivalent (PE) greater than 250 and the effluents from 25 Water Treatment Works (WTW). Details of compliance with the requirements of the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment (UWWT) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995 are also presented for the 37 WWTWs that currently qualify for inclusion under the conditions of the Regulations.
It should be noted that the details of the capital works upgrades and the financial arrangements to support this investment, given in this 2001 Report, have been updated to reflect the situation at mid 2003.
To read the report, visit http://www.ehsni.gov.uk/pubs/publications/Reg_WSD.pdf.
