Brexit law change could restrict access to UK river pollution data

A authorized proper to entry environmental data, which activists and researchers have used to uncover the illegal launch of uncooked sewage into UK rivers, could possibly be misplaced as a part of the UK’s authorized disentangling from the European Union. Without these Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs), it could possibly be a lot more durable to carry water companies and authorities our bodies to account, campaigners have warned.

“The public have a right to understand what’s happening in their local environment and many of our representatives rely on EIRs for localised data on sewage discharges in their areas,” says Louise Reddy at Surfers Against Sewage, a bunch that displays water high quality at greater than 400 river and coastal areas within the UK. “The scrapping of EIRs would be very problematic – we should be taking more steps towards transparency, not three steps back.”

EIRs are much like the UK’s freedom of knowledge legislation, which permits anybody to request data held by public our bodies. Crucially, the environmental model requires some non-public corporations, comparable to water companies, to answer requests as effectively. This was solely clarified in 2015, when environmental group Fish Legal took water corporations Yorkshire Water and United Utilities to the European Court of Justice after they refused to reveal knowledge about their launch of uncooked sewage into water our bodies.

Fish Legal gained the case after arguing that water companies have been public entities and so legally certain to launch environmental data by way of EIRs. The ruling meant water companies have been pressured to launch knowledge. “It was a long, hard fight,” says Penny Gane at Fish Legal. “I never thought we’d have to revisit it.”

EIRs additionally helped deliver wider public consideration to sewage overflows in 2021 when Peter Hammond, a retired arithmetic professor at University College London, was capable of uncover particulars on the widespread launch of uncooked sewage into UK rivers by water companies. The knowledge launched below the laws confirmed that the size of uncooked sewage discharge by water companies was 10 occasions increased than the UK’s Environment Agency had beforehand estimated.  “I couldn’t do any of the work that I’ve done without EIRs,” says Hammond.

But now, the existence of EIRs is threatened by the Retained EU Law Bill, which is at the moment going by means of the UK’s parliament and can see 1000’s of EU-derived legal guidelines expire on the finish of 2023 except they’re particularly saved in UK legislation. Gane fears EIRs, that are an implementation of an EU-wide directive on entry to environmental data, might be ignored by officers who’ve a mammoth job of sifting by means of the assorted legal guidelines encompassed by the invoice.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty around the actual bill itself – we just don’t know what the thinking is behind closed doors,” she says. “There’s absolutely no transparency around how this process is working and yet they’re moving very quickly.”

Other environmental teams are additionally anxious about dropping this key software. “The Retained EU Law Bill has the potential to weaken our legislative framework, impacting on the future health of our rivers,” says Tessa Wardley on the Rivers Trust. The lack of EIRs would weaken entry to knowledge that helps third events maintain polluters to account the place the federal government and regulators are failing of their enforcement duties, she says.

EIRs will not be the one casualty of the good Brexit untangling. “The Environmental Information Regulations are amongst thousands of laws that are vital in protecting our environment,” says Sandy Luk on the Marine Conservation Society. The sheer enormity of the duty concerned in executing the Retained EU Law Bill implies that there are more likely to be adverse impacts, she says, “either because laws are accidentally sunsetted because they weren’t caught in any list, or because amendments will be suggested that weaken the existing legal framework.”

“The water industry supports calls to protect key legislation threatened by the Retained EU Law Bill that safeguards our rivers, seas and drinking water quality, including Environment Information Regulations,” says a spokesperson for business physique Water UK. “Water companies remain committed to complete transparency, regardless of the government’s decisions about the bill.”

“We are unequivocal that reviewing our retained EU law will not come at the expense of the UK’s already high standards,” says a spokesperson for the federal government’s Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra). “As with all retained EU law, the accessibility of environmental information is being carefully considered.”

But Gane says she needs greater than platitudes from Defra on this situation. “We have a groundswell of support behind us now and we will do everything that we can to make sure that the right to access environmental information is protected.”