Environmental Risk Assessments for discharges to water
If your discharge into surface water contains hazardous chemicals and elements, we may need to complete an Environmental Risk Assessment as part of assessing your permit application. This requires payment of an additional fee on top of the application fee for an Environmental Permit.
What are hazardous chemicals and elements?
These hazardous chemicals and elements are known as ‘specific substances’.
Details of each substance can be downloaded from Gov.uk
How do I know if they are in my discharge?
Hazardous chemicals and elements are likely to be in the discharge if:
- they’re allowed to be added to the discharge (for example water company trade effluent consent or discharges from installations)
- you’ve added them to the discharge (for example from activity, or where you might have added iron or aluminium to remove phosphorus).
- you’ve detected them using chemical analysis
What does the Environmental Risk Assessment do?
The assessment includes modelling tests to show whether your discharge will cause pollution. If the modelling tests show that your discharge will cause pollution, we will include conditions to control the hazardous chemical or element in your permit or we may refuse your permit application if the impact on the environment is unacceptable.
How can I get more information?
If you’re not sure if your discharge will require an Environmental Risk Assessment you can use our pre-application advice service for Environmental Permits and we’ll tell you if we will need to undertake a one as part of assessing your permit application.