The Environment Agency
The Environment Agency is a central government organisation which is responsible for dealing with a wide range of environmental issues. Many of these issues interface with the responsibilities of the Council.
As a result the Environment Agency and local authorities work closely on a number of environmental issues including contaminated land.
The Environment Agency's responsibilities include:
- certain aspects of the Contaminated Land Regime
- waste Management Licensing
- authorisation of industrial processes
- radiation
- pollution of controlled waters (i.e. streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, ground water and groundwater)
- flooding and flood defence
- producing techncial guidance
Under the Contaminated Land Regime (Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990), the Environment Agency is responsible for dealing with contaminated land set out within the Contaminated Land (England) Regulations 2006 (so called ‘special sites’), including
- contamination of specified controlled waters (e.g. rivers and groundwater)
- land contaminated by certain radioactive matierals
- certain land uses set out within the legislation
Land uses/industrial uses that would be dealt with by the Agency include:
- waste acid tar lagoons
- oil refining
- explosives
- IPC sites
- defence land
- nuclear sites
While the Council is still responsible for identifying contaminated land, undertaking desk study investigations and determining land as contaminated land, for special sites the Environment Agency is responsible for intrusive investigations and ensuring that the land is appropriately cleaned up.
Further information is available on the Contaminated Land Regime page. Click here for details of local Environment Agency contacts.
Page updated: 15 Jun 2010
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