§ Bob SpinkTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what constitutes a moderate risk of release of leachate from a landfill site into a surrounding sea or land area. [171526]
§ Mr. MorleyThe Landfill Directive requires that a landfill must be situated and designed so as to meet the necessary conditions for preventing pollution of the soil, groundwater or surface water and ensuring efficient collection of leachate as and when required. In addition, the Groundwater Directive requires Member States1292W to prevent the introduction of certain substances and to limit the introduction of certain other substances into groundwater so as to avoid pollution.
The legislation in England that implements both these Directives is regulated by the Environment Agency and it is the Agency that would determine whether a likely release of leachate constituted an unacceptable risk, given the planned location of the landfill, using risk assessment techniques.
For closed landfills that are controlled by a waste management licence, a risk based approach is also adopted by the Environment Agency. Monitoring of leachate, ground and surface waters is required to provide, amongst other things, that leachate controls are preventing pollution of the environment and, where unacceptable risks are identified, the need for measures to prevent, reduce or remove potential leachate pollution are assessed.
§ Bob SpinkTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what fines have been issued by courts following successful prosecutions for release of pollution from landfill sites in each of the last five years. [171533]
§ Mr. MorleyThe Environment Agency has provided the following details of total levels of fines issued by the courts following successful prosecutions for release of pollution from landfill sites.
Data are available for the calendar years 2000–03 as these are the years for which complete data is present on the database. As the database is not specifically searchable for offences at landfill sites, these figures have been generated by selecting records where the word "landfill" appears in the address of the site of an event.
£ 2000 1— 183,000 2001 1— 91,500 2002 1— 127,750 2003 1— 51,000 1 Total fines for year