§ Mr. John TownendTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of advice from the National Rivers Authority on estuary boundaries under the EC urban waste water treatment directive; and if he will make a statement. [1186]
§ Mr. Robert B. JonesEarlier this year, my Department asked the National Rivers Authority—now the Environment Agency—to make recommendations for reconsidering the criteria for determining estuary boundaries for the purposes of the EC urban waste water treatment directive, specifically looking at the Severn, the Humber, and Swansea bay.
Having considered the agency's recommendations, my Secretary of State, together with the Secretary of State for Wales, has decided on the following:
to draw the seaward limit of the Severn estuary at a line from Lavenock point through the Holms to Howe Rock on Brean Down;to return the seaward limit of the Parrett Estuary to the Clean Rivers (Estuaries and Tidal Waters) Act 1960 boundary, being a line drawn from Howe Rock on Brean Down to Hinckley Point; (the Parrett estuary boundary was considered during the setting of the Severn Estuary boundary in 1994 and the agency considered it appropriate to reconsider it during this exercise).similarly, to return the seaward limits of the Humber and of Swansea Bay to the 1960 Act boundaries, being:
- (a) for the Humber, a line drawn from Spurn Head to Donna Nook at TF434029971;
- (b) for Swansea Bay, a line drawn from Mumbles Head to Sker Point.
These decisions will mean that all sewage discharges of a size greater than 2,000 population equivalent into these newly defined estuarine waters will be required to have secondary treatment.
The outer boundaries for all other estuaries in England and Wales are to remain the same as those used by the Environment Agency for other purposes. These are also the boundaries established by the Department for UWWTD purposes in 1994.