Affinity Water Draft Water Resources Management Plan. Strategic Environmental Assessment Environmental Report. Prepared by Jacobs for Affinity Water

Transcription

1 Affinity Water Draft Water Resources Management Plan Strategic Environmental Assessment Environmental Report Prepared by Jacobs for Affinity Water May 2013

2 Document Control Sheet BPP 04 F8 Version 14 July 2012 Project: Affinity WRMP (PR14) Project No: B18627B3 Client: Affinity Water Document Title: Affinity Water Draft Water Resources Management Plan SEA Environmental Report Ref. No: REVISION NAME NAME NAME NAME DATE INITIALS INITIALS INITIALS INITIALS Document Status REVISION NAME NAME NAME NAME DATE INITIALS INITIALS INITIALS INITIALS Document Status Jacobs U.K. Limited This document has been prepared by a division, subsidiary or affiliate of Jacobs U.K. Limited ( Jacobs ) in its professional capacity as consultants in accordance with the terms and conditions of Jacobs contract with the commissioning party (the Client ). Regard should be had to those terms and conditions when considering and/or placing any reliance on this document. No part of this document may be copied or reproduced by any means without prior written permission from Jacobs. If you have received this document in error, please destroy all copies in your possession or control and notify Jacobs. Any advice, opinions, or recommendations within this document (a) should be read and relied upon only in the context of the document as a whole; (b) do not, in any way, purport to include any manner of legal advice or opinion; (c) are based upon the information made available to Jacobs at the date of this document and on current UK standards, codes, technology and construction practices as at the date of this document. It should be noted and it is expressly stated that no independent verification of any of the documents or information supplied to Jacobs has been made. No liability is accepted by Jacobs for any use of this document, other than for the purposes for which it was originally prepared and provided. Following final delivery of this document to the Client, Jacobs will have no further obligations or duty to advise the Client on any matters, including development affecting the information or advice provided in this document. This document has been prepared for the exclusive use of the Client and unless otherwise agreed in writing by Jacobs, no other party may use, make use of or rely on the contents of this document. Should the Client wish to release this document to a third party, Jacobs may, at its discretion, agree to such release provided that (a) Jacobs written agreement is obtained prior to such release; and (b) by release of the document to the third party, that third party does not acquire any rights, contractual or otherwise, whatsoever against Jacobs and Jacobs, accordingly, assume no duties, liabilities or obligations to that third party; and (c) Jacobs accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage incurred by the Client or for any conflict of Jacobs interests arising out of the Client's release of this document to the third party. SEA Environmental Report_Final version_13_05_17 (2) - i -

3 Non-technical Summary Introduction Water is a resource that is often taken for granted and yet it is essential for our health and well-being. In the United Kingdom we each consume on average 150 litres of water every day in our homes 1. Water resources need to be managed to ensure that there are sufficient resources to meet demand for water both now and in the future without detriment to the environment. Affinity Water has prepared a draft Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP) which presents options for managing water supply over the next 25 years. Affinity Water supplies three regions, Central Region, East Region and Southeast Region as indicated by the figure below. After 2015, it is predicted that there will not be enough water supply to meet future needs for the Central Region and Southeast Region (due to a predicted growth in population and housing, reduction in sources to protect the environment and climate change). Therefore, the draft WRMP has been prepared to present measures to improve water efficiency and increase water supply to meet future needs in these areas. This is the summary of the Environmental Report for the WRMP, which reports the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) that has been undertaken as part of the preparation of the draft WRMP. It has formed part of the decision making process, along with the technical and economic assessments. Scoping Stage of the SEA Process An early step in the SEA process was to review other policies, plans and programmes (PPP) to understand what commitments and policies were in place for the protection of the environment and communities. The PPP review considered international, national and more local plans and policies and highlighted the environmental and social priorities that should be taken into account during the SEA and by Affinity Water when developing its WRMP. The SEA also included a review of the existing environmental conditions relevant to the WRMP area. This considered the environmental and social conditions prevalent at the current time as well as the likely issues that would develop without the WRMP. This are called the baseline conditions. 1 Statistic taken from the Environment Agency website Save Water accessed 7 th September SEA Environmental Report_Final version_13_05_17 (2) - i -

4 Together, the understanding gained by the PPP review and baseline review allowed a series of environmental objectives (SEA objectives) to be developed. The SEA objectives provide the basis against which to assess the draft WRMP. The SEA process up to this point was the scoping stage whereby the scope of the SEA is proposed. The scope was then consulted upon during October to December Summary of Environmental Conditions (Baseline) The following issues are important when considering water resource planning: Central Region International nature conservation designations (the Southwest London Waterbodies and Lee Valley wetlands): Chalk Rivers including the tributaries of the Lee and Colne The unconfined chalk aquifer: The Upper Lee (Luton): Chilterns and Surrey Hills: The River Thames: North eastern farmland Southeast Region Designated sites around Denge and Dungeness Tourist areas around St Mary s bay including Dymchurch and Hythe The Kent Downs AONB The cliffs and coastal environment The River Dour SEA Objectives Taking into account the PPP review and understanding of the baseline, the following objectives have been identified against which to assess how the WRMP impacts the environment. Theme Population and human health Tourism and recreation Material assets Biodiversity, flora and fauna Landscape, townscape and visual amenity Climatic factors Surface Water Groundwater Cultural heritage and archaeology Geology and soils SEA objective Ensure access to clean water to support health and hygiene of population Protect and enhance recreation and amenity facilities To maintain key infrastructure in support of the local economy Reduce material consumption and the generation of waste Protect and enhance biodiversity including designated and other important habitats and species. Conserve and enhance landscape character and visual amenity. Minimise the carbon footprint of the Company. Adapt to climate change Protect and improve surface water body status. Minimise the risk of flooding taking account of climate change Protect and improve groundwater body status. Conserve and enhance buildings, sites and features of archaeological and historic interest and their settings Minimise loss of soil quality and sterilisation of mineral resources. SEA Environmental Report_Final version_13_05_17 (2) - ii -

5 SEA approach to informing the development of the WRMP Various options have been considered by Affinity Water for ensuring there would be sufficient water supply to its customers in the future. The options include measures to improve water efficiency (such as reducing water leaks, introducing more water metering to encourage customers to use water more wisely), options to meet the permitted water supply yield in certain locations where currently the yield isn t being achieved, options to purchase water supplies from third parties, options to transfer water supply from other areas where there is a surplus in supply, options to store more water in reservoirs and options to recycle water or convert sea water into drinking water via a desalination process. The SEA included four stages: 1. Assessment of the Unconstrained List : An environmental screening was used to inform the option selection process and to remove the worst of each option type from the unconstrained list. A traffic light shading system was used to record the results. 2. Assessment of the feasible list : Further environmental assessment was undertaken on the feasible list of options. This considered each option in detail to identify potential significant impacts which may arise either directly or indirectly as a consequence of the proposed options and any mitigation that would be required if the option was taken forward. One of the outputs of the assessment was an environmental risk level that was inserted into the model. 3. Identification of the Preferred Plan: A computer-based decision-making tool (the model ) was used to weigh up the various options, and combinations of options, using various environmental (including the SEA risk level), economic and technical criteria. Different scenarios were considered using this tool. The different scenarios were: Do nothing scenario: This was used as a base case to compare the alternative plans to. It assumes that no new options are implemented to reduce the deficit. Base case scenario: The model was run to identify the least cost plan. This is the most economical way of reducing the deficit and would be used as a starting point for identifying the preferred plan. SEA1 - Base case with high risk options removed: The base case was rerun but with the high risk environmental options removed. SEA2 - Base case with high risk options and Water Resource Zone (WRZ) 3 and 4 moderate risk options removed: The base case was rerun but with the high risk environmental options removed along with the moderate environmental risk options removed from zones where lower risk options were available. SEA3 - Base case with high risk options and WRZ3 moderate risk options removed: The base case was rerun but with the high risk environmental options removed along with the moderate environmental risk options removed from WRZ3. SEA4- Base case with high risk options and WRZ4 moderate risk options removed: The base case was rerun but with the high risk environmental options removed along with the moderate environmental risk options removed from WRZ4. SEA Environmental Report_Final version_13_05_17 (2) - iii -

6 Based upon the results of the model run, Affinity Water has decided to choose SEA1 (excluding high risk options) as the new base case for future model scenarios. This was used to further develop the preferred Plan. Some alterations were also made to this WRMP scenario based on customer feedback during the consultation stage and to take account timeframes for implementation. 4. Review of the Preferred Plan: We reviewed the preferred plan against the original objectives and PPP review to check similarities and discordances. As part of this, we compared the Plan to the targets set during the Scoping Stage. We also reviewed the individual projects and identified further work that would be required. All of these actions are set out in the Environmental Action Plan Review of the Preferred WRMP The preferred draft WRMP comprises several non-site specific options such as community focused water efficiency, leakage reduction, metering and water efficiency measures as well as site-specific measures such as new transfers from other water companies and resource zones, increasing abstraction at existing sites within licence and pursuing or purchasing new abstractions. These have been assessed as part of the SEA and show to have no significant effect either in isolation or as a combined Plan. There are also no significant effects identified between the Affinity Water WRMP and neighbouring Plans. Some of the larger schemes are not programmed to commence until after 2020 and therefore will be subject to at least one further review as part of the next plan cycle. Further investigations will be undertaken over this plan cycle to understand the feasibility of these options and to better understand the environmental impacts that would be expected to occur during the implementation and operation phases. Recommendations (Monitoring and Environmental Action Plan) We have recommended monitoring measures to check the progress of the WRMP against the SEA objectives. The monitoring results will provide information that can be used to inform the SEA during the next Plan review in five years time. We have also produced an Environmental Action Plan, which summarises the actions and further work identified in the Environmental Report. The Action Plan is a way of ensuring that the recommendations of the SEA are met during the implementation phase. Affinity Water has developed a risk assessment, which is undertaken on all projects before implementation, including those that would not require a statutory environmental assessment. As part of the SEA this has been amended to include a number of environmental topics as part of minimising our project risk and the impacts to the environment. SEA Environmental Report_Final version_13_05_17 (2) - iv -