Waste-water treatment plants — Sewage sludge — Pollution control — Claimant seeking declarations that permits not required for treatment plants — Whether pollution control regulations implementing European law applying to treatment of waste water — Declarations made in part
The claimant was a statutory water and sewerage provider under the Water Industry Act 1991. It supplied water and sewerage services to homes and businesses in north-west England pursuant to a licence under the Water Act 1989. It operated 599 waste-water treatment plants incorporating 70 sludge-treatment facilities and one stand-alone sludge-treatment facility.
Each of the plants received waste water consisting of domestic sewage, industrial trade effluent and rainwater run-off. The treatment produced either waste water that could be discharged back into rivers or other receiving waters controlled under the Water Resources Act 1991, or sludge that was either disposed of by incineration or landfill or recovered for use on agricultural land.
The claimant sought declarations that it was not required to secure from the defendant permits under the Pollution Prevention and Control (England and Wales) Regulations 2000 (which gave effect to EC Council Directive 96/61/EC (the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive)) in respect of works performed at six plants that had been chosen as test cases.
The issues were whether: (i) the 2000 Regulations applied to waste-water treatment activities or were limited to identified industrial activities excluding waste-water and sludge treatment; (ii) sewage sludge was “waste” under article 1(a) of the Waste Framework Directive (75/442/EEC) (WFD), covered by the WFD as “waste in liquid form” or excluded under article 2(b)(iv) as waste waters “already covered by other legislation”; (iii) the intermediate treatment of sludge was covered by Directive 96/61 or the 2000 Regulations as a disposal of non-hazardous waste resulting in final compounds or mixtures being discarded; and (iv) the treatment of beer and milk effluent were covered by the 2000 Regulations.
Held: The declarations were made in part.
(1) Bearing in mind the integrated approach to pollution control required by Directive 96/61, to prevent emissions into air, water or soil wherever practicable, the proper interpretation of the 2000 Regulations was that they were intended to apply to waste-water treatment activities.
(2) Sludge was undoubtedly waste under article 1(a) of the WFD. It was aqueous and constituted “waste in liquid form” once it had been extracted from waste waters and was more concentrated. Moreover, even if sludge constituted “waste waters”, it was not already covered by other legislation and the exclusion in article 2(b)(iv) did not apply: AvestaPolarit Chrome Oy v Lapin Ympäristökeskus C-114/07 [2003] ECR I-8725 considered.
(3) The objective of the waste-disposal provisions was the protection of human health and the environment from the harmful effects of the collection, transport, treatment, storage and tipping of waste. Accordingly, the intermediate treatment of sludge was subject to Directive 96/61 and the regulations since the objectives of those provisions could not be achieved if treatment processes at intermediate plants were excluded.
(4) The 2000 Regulations did not apply to the treatment of the effluent from either the brewery or the milk-processing plant because neither the brewing nor milk-processing and water-treatment activities were carried out on the same site.
Lawrence West QC and Wendy Outhwaite (instructed by Addleshaw Goddard, of Leeds) appeared for the claimant; David Hart QC and Angus McCullough (instructed by the legal department of the Environment Agency) appeared for the defendant.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
