The Environment Agency has released a revised policy for the protection of land under the Pollution Prevention and Control (England and Wales) Regulations 2000. The revised policy changes the requirements for the production of a site report as part of the application process for a PPC permit.
The changes have been made in response to problems that have been encountered in the use of the Government's existing guidance, "IPPC: A Practical Guide". The changes have been made with the Government's agreement.
The new policy will not be applicable to areas of a landfill installation which form the stationary technical unit for the landfill activity, but it is relevant to the directly associated activities.
The application process to date
The PPC regime was introduced in England and Wales in August 2000. Existing industrial installations are being phased into the new regime on a sector-by-sector basis until 2007. As part of the application process to obtain a PPC permit, the Regulations require the production of an Application Site Report (ASR). This report is used to determine the condition of the site in terms of existing land contamination and potential pollution risks.
The use of "IPPC: a Practical Guide" has led in many cases to the applicant conducting intrusive surveys (i.e. providing soil and/or water analysis data) as part of the initial site report. The Environment Agency has found that the production of such intrusive surveys at the application stage has been a significant factor in causing delays to the permitting process.
The new approach
The new approach aims to focus on pollution prevention throughout the life of the installation. The amended guidance emphasises that the ASR will normally be a desk-based study, and only in exceptional circumstances would intrusive investigations be required.
The aim of the study should be to identify any existing substances that may cause pollution and the measures in place to prevent such pollution. This information must be sufficient to form the basis of the subsequent Site Protection and Monitoring Programme (SPMP) for impacts to land and water which will act as a baseline for assessment of pollution prevention measures over the lifetime of the permit.
Intrusive investigations prior to grant of a permit will be required in circumstances where the desk study information is poor or incomplete such that the condition of the site cannot be adequately described. This could particularly be the case where geological information on the site – usually obtainable from the British Geological Survey – is not available or is inadequate.
SPMPs
In most cases, it will be a condition of the permit that a draft SPMP be produced by the operator within 2 months of the issue of the permit. A further condition will be imposed to require that the SPMP be agreed with the Environment Agency and implemented within 6 months of the date of issue of the Permit. It is at this stage that initial intrusive investigations may be required. The agreed programme may then require a range of routine inspection and monitoring measures to demonstrate the on-going effectiveness of pollution prevention measures over the lifetime of the installation. Such measures may include intrusive sampling depending upon the circumstances. However intrusive monitoring will always be required where there are:
- bulk storage facilities for liquid chemicals and other substances; and
- no preventative measures e.g. lack of hard standing or use of sub-surface pipework for transport of substances; or
- inadequate preventative measures e.g. cracked or inappropriately maintained hard standing or bunding or where the delivery pipework or taps are located outside of such bunding; or
- a series of pollution incidents or spillages at the site; or
- no, or inadequate, proposals to conduct integrity testing of preventative measures.
The aim of the SPMP is to be proportionate to the risk posed by the installation and as such intrusive investigations would not be required for a site where adequate pollution prevention measures are in place to prevent pollution to land occurring and where there is no history of pollution incidents or spillages.
Benefits to new applicants
The new policy is to be applied to sites where the operators have not yet made applications for PPC permits. Sites that have outstanding applications but did not satisfy the site report requirements under the old policy will also be subject to the revised policy.
The benefits of this new approach are that the application process for PPC permits should be more streamlined, and some installations will be entirely exempt from the requirement to conduct intrusive investigations. However, higher risk sites will still require intrusive investigations both during the preparation of the initial site report and during the currency of the Permit.
The new policy and guidance
The new Environment Agency policy is available online. To view this please click here.
The detailed guidance to accompany the new policy is available if you click here.
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