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Water companies will be hit with fines for failing to adequately monitor storm overflows.
Ofwat has confirmed that water companies must comply with a new performance commitment for monitoring storm overflows at the next price review from 2024. This will include fines for inadequate monitoring or if a monitor is faulty.
Each of the 11 water and wastewater companies in England and Wales will have targets to reduce average spill numbers at each combined sewer overflow (CSO).
Financial penalties will be incurred if the new performance commitments are not met.
After a consultation last month, the regulator confirmed that for any CSO that is not monitored or the monitor is faulty, Ofwat would assume a spill rate of 100 times per year. This is inflated to around four times the current average so would skew any company’s performance.
Ofwat said this would “provide a strong incentive for companies to install and maintain their monitors” with financial consequences if they did not.
The targets, which will be in-line with the government’s Storm overflow discharge reduction plan, will be announced together with penalties in Ofwat’s final determinations in late 2024.
“Companies need to monitor their use of storm overflows and reduce their use,” Ofwat’s senior director of price review Chris Walter said.
“Companies must now take account of Ofwat’s decision when preparing their business plans for submission to Ofwat in October 2023. We will continue to use all the powers we have to drive companies to get to grips with this issue.”
Companies are legally required to install monitoring equipment to all CSOs by the end of 2023 and to make the data publicly available.
In its PR24 methodology, Ofwat stipulated that “where appropriate” companies should go beyond the government target of an annual average of 20 spills per overflow from 2025 onwards, without additional expenditure allowances.
The regulator said there would also be a net zero performance commitment and a river water quality performance target introduced at the next price review.
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