Abstraction Reform | BAWAG | Broadland Agricultural Water Abstractors Group

The two options proposed by Defra within the consultation are:

Current System Plus option:

• The Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales would continue to use the tools currently applied to some licences to reduce or stop abstraction to leave enough water in rivers or groundwater for the environment or other abstractors when flows are low.
• We would improve these tools, strengthening the link between water availability and abstraction to allow more water to be abstracted when more is available, helping abstractors to adapt to the risks posed by increasing variability of water availability. This would also improve environmental protection, particularly at very low flows.
• Abstractors would have annual and daily limits in a similar way to now.
• We would make it easier for abstractors to trade water with each other as temporary low risk trades would be pre-approved.
• Groundwater abstraction could be varied over the long term in response to changes in availability.

Water Shares option:

• Abstractors would have a share in the available water resource, rather than an absolute amount. This would encourage abstractors to take a shared responsibility for water resources in catchments in line with the broader catchment based approach.
• As currently, in each specified area within a catchment the regulator would assess how much water is required to avoid environmental deterioration.
• The remaining volume of water would then be referred to as the “available resource”. Abstractors then hold shares of different reliabilities in this available resource.
• Abstractors would receive a water allocation for a fixed period based on the available resource at that time and the reliability and size of their share.
• For surface water abstractors this period might be a fortnight, although for most abstractors their allocation would not change except at very low flows. For most groundwater abstractors the allocation period would be at least annual.
• This option allows for pre-approval of shorter-term trading between abstractors and a wider range of trades.

Under both options Defra would also:

• Remove time limits from licences that currently have them and instead introduce a new transparent and risk based process to review catchment conditions that would enable the regulator to change any abstraction permission within each catchment (regardless of whether they have a time limit now or not), with notice, to protect the environment;
• Improve the link between abstraction charges and usage;
• Take an evolutionary and proportionate approach to implementation. We would only introduce the full package of reforms in some catchments where there are clear economic and environmental benefits to doing so.

For more information: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/water/abstraction-reform

or:

http://www.potato.org.uk/news/time-engage-governments%E2%80%99-water-abstraction-reform

The Consultation closes 28 March, 2014.

Farming business is fined for providing misleading information about quantity of water abstracted.

Lakenheath farming business N&M Sizer lied about how much water it abstracted, fearing it would lose its licence or have its abstraction limits reduced.

In doing so, the company falsely stated that it had extracted more water than it was allowed to under the licence which resulted in an investigation by the Environment Agency.

The company had actually taken very little of the allowance as its crops at the time did not need spray irrigation, Ipswich Magistates’ Court heard today (30 May).

It fined the company £3,000 for the deception and ordered it to pay £2,531 costs.

Mrs Megan Selves, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told the court the company had been worried that as it had not taken much water it would lose the right the following year to take what the licence allowed.

However, she said that any reduction in future abstraction or any revocation of licence would not be done without looking at about 10 years of records and without discussion with the licence holder.

Any assessment would only be carried out when the licence came up for renewal or if there was evidence that the licence is causing environmental damage. The licence for N&M Sizer Ltd expires on 31 March 2027.

Mrs Selves said that water meters at the company’s site, Bedford Fen in Sedgefen, had been re-calibrated to corroborate the figures submitted to the Environment Agency in a ‘determined effort to mislead’.

She said the company’s actions had been deliberate and a ‘flagrant disregard for the law’ and although there had been no environmental impact, the company had falsified its figures giving a false impression of how much water had been taken from the environment.

Mrs Selves said the company had shown remorse and co-operated with the investigation.

N&M Sizer Ltd pleaded guilty to:

Charge: On or before 30 November 2015 you furnished information to the Environment Agency pursuant to section 201 of the Water Resources Act 1991, namely the water abstraction return for 2014 to 2015 for licence 6/33/39/*S/0496/R01 for abstraction points A, C, D, E and F, and in the said information made a statement which you knew to be false or misleading in a material particular, namely that you had abstracted 153,360 cubic metres of water.

Contrary to section 206(1) and (5) of the Water Resources Act 199