Local authorities need to take a more strategic approach to tackling the decline in water quality, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says.
A report by the EPA shows that less than half of the 620 performance assessments undertaken across 20 national environmental enforcement priorities met the required standard in 2021.
The EPA’s office of environmental enforcement director Dr Tom Ryan said that “local authorities have a fundamental role to play in protecting the environment within their counties, and their performance in that role needs to improve”.
“The local environmental challenges are great,” he said, commenting on the report analysing local authority performance.
“The water quality in our rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters is in decline, and there are concerning localised issues that are impacting negatively on the air we breathe,” Dr Ryan said.
“The segregation of waste streams, which is so critical to supporting materials reuse in the development of a circular economy, is not as good as it needs to be,” he said.
“Local authorities need to have a more strategic approach to addressing these issues within their counties so as to protect people’s right to the enjoyment of a healthy environment,” he said.
“While local authorities are engaged in a great deal of enforcement activity, they need to have a better focus on priority environmental issues and increase or escalate enforcement action where required,” he said.
“Our water quality is in decline with just over half of surface waters (rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters) in satisfactory condition,”Dr Ryan continued.
He said that agriculture is one sector having a negative impact, due nutrients including nitrogen and phosphorus run-off into waterways.
“ Local authorities must target farm inspections in these areas. The proper use of fertilisers and the correct management of slurry will benefit both the farmer and the environment,”he said.
The EPA report shows that the scale of environmental enforcement work carried out by local authorities is “significant”.
It documents how over 500 local authority staff handled almost 81,000 complaints and carried out over 205,000 environmental inspections in 2021.
The EPA notes that this is the first year of the revised “Local Authority Performance Framework”, which assesses the effectiveness of inspection activities in targeting key environmental issues.
The assessment is based on 20 priorities, and measures how local authority actions deliver environmental outcomes - such as better segregation of household and commercial waste, cleaner air through controls on solid fuel sales and minimising risks to water quality from farming activities, the EPA says.
This also requires a follow-up and “closure of issues detected so that real environmental improvements are achieved”, the EPA says.
EPA office of environmental enforcement programme manager David Pollard said that air and noise enforcement “continues to have the lowest level of dedicated resources within local authorities”.
Pollard said there is a “need for increased enforcement efforts to improve segregation of domestic, commercial, construction and demolition waste to improve reuse and recycling of materials”.
He also said it is “crucial that local authorities tackle air pollution issues by making sure that only approved solid fuels are sold”.
“The Focus on Local Authority Environmental Enforcement – Performance Report 2021” report is available on the EPA website.
