, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 2
Okay. We still have a finite resource, which is water, which we all need, and you're still allowing a lot of this water to just disappear into the sea.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 2
I just want to look at the regulatory framework in the context of all this. Because both of you have waxed lyrical on the importance of nature-based solutions, and, absolutely, nobody's in disagreement about that. But how much is it the fact that we have this…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 2
Thank you.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 2
Okay, thank you. James, how do you compare?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 2
So, how much has the installation of the event and duration monitors on nearly all your areas where there is potential for storm overflows—? How much has that driven your much improved self-reporting?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 2
Thank you.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 2
Sticking with Dŵr Cymru, and I'll come to Hafren in a minute, I think I heard the previous witnesses say that you're obliged to report unregulated overflows, and you do so now in about 80 per cent of cases. That's what I understood them to say. So, I wondered…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 2
Okay. I just wanted to challenge you on this business of climate change. We talk a lot about flooding, and that's absolutely right, but if you look at the global picture, water is the new gold, and yet you companies are allowing—. It's like flushing £50 notes…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
I just wanted to highlight what Hafren have put in their paper, which I know Dŵr Cymru are worried about too, which is illegal connections going on because of the inadequate planning enforcement, and I just wondered: how does that fit into the road map for…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
I would suggest that 'maybe' is not the operable word, because we know that the housing and the big house builders—they only build the same old, same old, unless you force them to do something different. So, you haven't yet had conversations, then, on this…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
We've discussed that already. I appreciate that's appalling. I want to focus on what we're doing in the built environment to stop all that valuable rainwater from going into the sewage system.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
I'd like to move on to discuss your development of a road map for storm overflows. Hafren Dyfrdwy suggest that nature-based solutions should be the first choice to address environmental challenges, yet sustainable drainage systems schemes like Greener…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Okay. Thank you.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Okay. How many penalties have you imposed in the last 10 years?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
So—
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
So, having put them on report, what transformation has taken place?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Okay, Mark.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Okay. So, in the case of our two water companies, have you, at any point in the last 10 years, felt the need to either reprimand them or prosecute them?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Thank you for that information. Mr Black, could you tell us what role you have in the action taken against polluters? Are you simply being provided with this information? What exactly is your role in ensuring that polluters don't repeat this?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Okay. Could you tell us about any action that's been taken against a polluter since that time?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Okay. I don't know if you can write to us about the number of breaches you've investigated since the wake-up call around—
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Right. Thank you very much for that useful information. Could you just tell us about the number of breaches that have been investigated and categories of spill since the Burry inlet incident?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
You're still on mute.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
Sure. No, I understand that. On whose insistence was it that monitors were installed at sewage treatment works? Was it Ofwat or was it the enforcement agency—in this case, NRW?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Water quality and sewage discharges - evidence session 1
What has changed to ensure that you know that companies are not doing this sort of thing?
