Water Quality (Hansard, 19 November 1997)

§ Mr. Dewar

The report on the Water Quality Survey of Scotland 1995 is being published today, and a copy has been placed in the House Library. I am pleased that the results confirm that the majority of Scottish rivers, lochs, estuaries and coastal waters are of a high quality.

However, I intend that progress will continue to improve further the Scottish water environment. For very large discharges (that is those serving more than 150,000 population equivalent), Article 8(5) of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive allows for primary treatment only to be provided, where it can be demonstrated that there would be no environmental benefit from secondary treatment. I have decided that only in very exceptional circumstances will we allow waste water discharges from major conurbations into coastal waters to be provided with anything less than secondary treatment. Following advice from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency 184W (SEPA) it is clear that the discharge from the Aberdeen Waste Water Treatment Works, which discharges directly to the open North Sea via a 2.5km long outfall, is exceptional in that it far exceeds the criteria established to judge such cases. The North of Scotland Water Authority's plans to invest in primary treatment will significantly improve the discharge, but I have accepted SEPA's advice that providing secondary treatment would not lead to any additional environmental benefit. The Government therefore have proposed to the European Commission that Article 8(5) of the Directive should be applied to the Aberdeen case.

Having also carefully considered SEPA's recommendations following comprehensive studies at Edinburgh and Levenmouth, I have decided that secondary treatment should be provided at those two sites. I do not envisage that the Government will wish to put forward to the Commission any further cases for relaxations under Article 8(5) for discharges from large sewage works into other Scottish waters.