To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs what steps his Department is taking to reduce the amount of raw sewage being discharged into Northern Ireland waters.

NIEA regulate discharges from Northern Ireland Water (NIW) under the Water Order 1999 as amended. NIEA implement an extensive regulatory regime setting consent standards and conditions to assist in the achievement of Good Status in Northern Ireland Rivers, and to achieve compliance with the treatment requirements set down in the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive.

NIEA regulates NIW using a number of tools to ensure the protection of public health and the environment. Given the extensive asset operated by NIW a risk based approach is applied with site inspections carried out to approximately 1000 wastewater treatment works (WwTW) per annum. NIW is also regulated through a self-monitoring compliance assessment process where independent samples are collected from 250 WwTW with a range of sampling frequencies.

NIEA apply the Enforcement Policy where there are breaches in discharge consent or where NIW has been the cause of a pollution incident. Since the company came into being on 1 April 2007, when ‘Crown Immunity’ was removed, NIW have been subject to the same Water (NI) Order 1999 Enforcement Policy as any other business sector in NI, including the initiation of prosecution proceedings via Public Prosecution Service (PPS).

NIEA will normally carry out formal enforcement action against NIW where there has been a significant water pollution impact and investigation demonstrates a managerial failure on behalf of the Company. NIEA have and continue to take action against NIW where necessary.

Across Northern Ireland, in the 14 years since 2007, NIEA has taken successful action against NIW in the Courts in respect of 73 significant water pollution incidents with fines during that period circa £250,000.

NIW has been significantly underfunded since they came into operation in 2007 and as a result, a prioritised approach is taken to manage the NI Water capital delivery programmes. NIEA works closely with NIW to prioritise the upgrade of WwTW and sewerage networks to ensure compliance with EC legislation and target funding where it will provide the greatest environmental improvements. NI Water requires significant investment to improve the level of wastewater management and treatment.

Compliance with the Urban Treatment Directive sets critical treatment levels which protect both public health and the environment. Capital investment programmes since 2007 have been focused on delivering improvements to those WWTW influencing designated sensitives areas, shellfish waters and bathing waters. Significant investment has been made delivering on major improvements in the quality of treated effluent discharges and the reduction in spills of untreated sewage to the environment. However there is a lot more to do, with ongoing adequate funding required for NI Water to continue to improve over a number of price control periods.

Critically, discharges of untreated sewage combined with storm water occur during heavy rainfall from sewer networks. These discharges occur to prevent flow in the system backing up and discharging into households during rainfall events and are a necessary requirement. Overflows are designed to protect public health through the avoidance of out of sewer flooding. However, due to the legacy of underfunding the sewerage network across Northern Ireland has a high number of unsatisfactory discharges spilling to the environment regularly. NIEA work closely with NI Water on the identification of the unsatisfactory discharges and prioritisation for capital investment to reduce and close those considered unsatisfactory.

Coupled with the regulatory and enforcement activity delivered by NIEA, my officials are also key delivery partners in significant investment projects for the Strategic Drainage Integrated Plan and the Living with Water Programme lead by Department of Infrastructure. These programmes will develop and deliver a more holistic approach to managing water and wastewater in the urban setting. These programmes bring together DfI Rivers, DfI Roads and NI Water to ensure all hard engineered drainage solutions are integrated improving environmental performance of wastewater assets ( avoidance/ reduction of unsatisfactory discharges), flood risk prevention/ management and economic development.