Consultation Arrangements The Department of the Environment (DOE) and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) (the Departments) would welcome any comment you may wish to make on the proposals made, and the issues raised, in this consultation paper (including the Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment). Where you disagree with any proposal, please provide evidence in support of alternative proposals. For operational reasons, responses are being co-ordinated through DOE. Comments may be made as follows:-
In writing to: Dr Fiona Wilson Water Framework Team Planning and Natural Resources Division Department of the Environment 1 st Floor Calvert House 23 Castle Place Belfast BT1 1FY By fax: 028 9025 4732 By text phone 028 9054 0642 By E-Mail fiona.wilson@doeni.gov.uk Comments on the issues and proposals raised in this paper should reach the Departments by 13 August 2010.
How to obtain further copies of this consultation paper? Further copies of this paper may be obtained:- On written request from the above address Via the Departments’ websites at www.doeni.gov.uk and www.dardni.gov.uk By telephoning 028 9025 4789 By text phone on 028 9054 0642. Should you require a copy of this paper in an alternative format it can be made available on request:
in braille, audiocassette, disc, large print, or text phone for the hearing impaired; in minority ethnic languages to those who are not proficient in English; or an executive summary translated into Irish or Ulster Scots. A list of the consultees that we have contacted directly for this exercise is attached at Annex C.
This list is not exhaustive and we welcome views from all interested parties.
Throughout the consultation paper reference is made to the following: the Scientific Review; and the Derogation Report.
These documents can be viewed on the DOE website at: http://www.doeni.gov.uk/index/protect_the_environment/water/nitrates_.htm and the DARD website at: http://www.dardni.gov.uk/index/publications/pubs-dard-environmental.htm
(ii) Freedom of Information Act 2000 - confidentiality of consultations The Departments will publish a summary of responses following completion of the consultation process. Your response and all other responses to the consultation may be disclosed on request. The Departments can only refuse to disclose information in exceptional circumstances. Before you submit your response, please read the paragraphs below with respect to the confidentiality of consultations, as they will give you guidance on the legal position about any information given by you in response to this consultation. The Freedom of Information Act gives the public a right of access to any information held by a public authority, namely, the Departments in this case. This right of access to information includes information provided in response to a consultation. The Departments cannot automatically consider as confidential information supplied to it in response to a consultation. However, it does have the responsibility to decide whether information provided by you in response to this consultation, including information about your identity, should be made public or treated as confidential. This means that information provided by you in response to the consultation is unlikely to be treated as confidential except in very particular circumstances. The Lord Chancellor’s Code of Practice on the Freedom of Information Act provides that:- The Departments should only accept information from third parties in confidence if it is necessary to obtain information in connection with the exercise of any of the Departments’ functions and it would not be otherwise provided; The Departments should not agree to hold information received from third parties ‘in confidence’ which is not confidential in nature; and Acceptance by the Departments of confidentiality provisions must be for good reasons, capable of being justified to the Information Commissioner.
For further information about confidentiality of responses please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office or see the website at: www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
1. Introduction Purpose of consultation 1. The Nitrates Action Programme Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 (the 2006 NAP Regulations) set out an action programme to reduce nitrates from agricultural sources entering the aquatic environment. The purpose of this consultation is to seek your views on the Departments’ proposals to amend the action programme by revoking the 2006 NAP Regulations and making the Nitrates Action Programme Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2010 (2010 NAP Regulations).
2. This will also allow consolidation of the Nitrates Action Programme (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008 and the Nitrates Action Programme (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2009, in line with Better Regulation principles.
Background 3. The Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) (the Directive) aims to improve water quality by protecting water against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources. In particular, it is about promoting better management of animal manures, chemical nitrogen fertilisers and other nitrogen-containing materials spread onto land. The Directive allows Member States to either designate discrete areas of land as Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs) or establish an action programme to be applied to the whole territory. The action programme requires farmers to observe rules to reduce nitrate pollution, with measures on storing manure and restrictions on the spreading of manure and chemical nitrogen fertiliser to land.
4. Until 1 January 2007, Northern Ireland had designated seven NVZs on the basis of elevated nitrate levels in groundwaters. These NVZs were very small and covered less than 1% of Northern Ireland’s area. However, Northern Ireland also has a widespread problem of eutrophication of surface waters and a large proportion of this nutrient enrichment is attributable to agriculture. Following extensive consultation, the total territory of Northern Ireland was established as the area to which an action programme would be applied.
5.On 1 January 2007 the 2006 NAP Regulations came into operation. These Regulations set out an action programme applying to all farms across Northern Ireland from that date, apart from some transitional arrangements on closed periods for manure spreading and manure storage requirements.
6.The Directive also requires Members States to review and, where necessary, revise their action programmes, including additional measures, at least every four years. The 2006 NAP Regulations must therefore be reviewed by 31 December 2010.
Derogation 7.Following the introduction of the 2006 NAP Regulations (which include a livestock manure application limit of 170 kg nitrogen per hectare per year), Northern Ireland also successfully applied to the European Commission (the Commission) for derogation allowing farmers who meet certain criteria to apply up to 250 kg nitrogen per hectare per year (kg N/ha/year) from grazing livestock manures.
8. It had originally been anticipated that over 730 farmers might need to apply for a derogation. In the event, in 2008, 322 farmers applied successfully to the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) to operate under a derogation and in 2009 and 2010 there were 169 and 149 applications respectively. Despite the lower than anticipated numbers applying for a derogation, the continued operation of derogation remains particularly important for the intensive grassland sector.
9. The EC Derogation Decision is directly applicable law in Northern Ireland and stipulates measures to be carried out by farmers operating under a derogation. In addition to these measures, the Departments must carry out further monitoring and controls and report these back to the Commission. The first Derogation Report covering 2007 and 2008 was submitted to the Commission on 2 November 2009 and is available on the DOE and DARD websites at: www.doeni.gov.uk/index/protect_the_environment/water/nitrates_.htm and http://www.dardni.gov.uk/index/publications/pubs-dard-environmental /nitrates_directive_derogation_summary_2010.htm
10. The Commission Decision (2007/863/EC) granting the Derogation expires on 31 December 2010 and must be renewed. The Departments have initiated the application process to renew Northern Ireland’s Derogation Decision, to be effective from 1 January 2011.
Review process 11. Before a Derogation application can be made to the Commission an acceptable action programme must be in place. This pre-requisite determined the need to commence the review of the 2006 NAP Regulations in autumn 2009.
12. Based on previous experience and to allow for new legislation to be in place by 1 January 2011, the Departments notified the Commission and the EU Nitrates Committee (comprised of Member States) in September 2009 of Northern Ireland’s intention to apply for a new Derogation. The formal application process commenced in January 2010, with a presentation made to the Nitrates Committee. This necessitated the collation of scientific evidence necessary to support the application. A second presentation to the Committee was made on 4 May 2010 and Member States are expected to vote on the application in autumn 2010.
13. The review process is dependent on the production of robust scientific evidence on the effectiveness of the current action programme. In addition, to inform the review of the action programme and the Derogation renewal, the Departments agreed to carry out specific research projects.
14. The review of the action programme is running in parallel with the Derogation application. To provide the necessary scientific evidence for a comprehensive review, a Scientific Working Group (SWG) chaired by DARD with representation from DOE (including NIEA), DARD and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), was established. Taking account of the requirements of the Nitrates Directive and the scientific evidence and research, the SWG put forward proposals for the action programme and the Derogation for the period 2011-2014.
15. A meeting and workshop was held in November 2009 with key stakeholders from the agricultural industry and environmental non-government organisations (NGO’s) to discuss the initial findings of the review. This provided the opportunity for stakeholders to present evidence to the SWG of their experiences of the action programme and in support of improvements they believe may be possible. A summary of the workshop was included in the final Scientific Review which was submitted to the Commission on 21 December 2009.
16. The review process is also incorporating Better Regulation principles as recommended by the Northern Ireland Agri-Food Better Regulation and Simplification Review Report, published in June 2009.
2. Position in Great Britain and Republic of Ireland 1. In England, Scotland and Wales new action programmes were introduced in 2008. A Derogation has been awarded to England and Scotland by the Commission, with new Regulations taking effect from December 2009 and January 2010 respectively. In England, Scotland and Wales the key water quality problem is elevated nitrate levels and farming systems are more varied with large areas of arable production.
2. The Republic of Ireland is also currently reviewing its action programme and applying for renewal of Derogation. Similar to the situation in Northern Ireland, eutrophication is the key water quality problem in the Republic of Ireland where farming is predominantly grass-based.
3. Scientific Review 1. As described in Section 1, a Scientific Working Group (SWG) was established to produce a scientific, evidence based report reviewing the effectiveness of the current action programme and Derogation. Also, the SWG was to highlight measures, supported by scientific evidence, where change may be necessary. The following provides a summary of the findings and proposals of the SWG. Water Quality 2. Surface freshwaters and groundwaters in Northern Ireland continue to have nitrate levels well below the 50 mg nitrate per litre (NO 3/l) limit in the Directive. Comparing data between the periods 2001-2004 and 2005-2008 indicates that the majority of sites are showing stabilisation in nitrate concentrations. There are still a very small number of groundwater sites with average concentrations greater than 50 mg NO 3 /l situated in areas which were previously designated in 1999 and 2003 as NVZs.
3. Long-term seasonal trend analysis showed that the monthly trends in average nitrate concentrations in rivers in Northern Ireland were predominantly decreasing or stable over the 15-year period, 1994-2009. The most significant decreasing trends occurred in the winter months December to March. Seasonal trend analysis also showed that the direction of monthly trends of average phosphorus concentrations in rivers in Northern Ireland was predominantly decreasing or stable over the nine year period, 1999-2009. The most significant decreasing trends occurred between April and September.
4. Since the adoption of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) (WFD) in 2000, new methodologies and criteria for assessment of trophic status in rivers, lakes and marine waters have been developed. The quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients are the primary determinants of trophic status which gives an indication of the level of environmental stress of a water body.
5. Overall WFD assessment for all three trophic indicators (soluble reactive phosphorus, macrophytes and diatoms) together shows that eutrophication continues to be a problem in rivers in Northern Ireland. This is in agreement with previous assessments under the Nitrates and Urban Waste Water Treatment (91/271/EEC) (UWWT) Directives and is borne out when considering each trophic indicator separately. Despite the majority of water bodies being classed as High/Good for phosphorus, both macrophyte and diatom classifications suggest that the plant and algal communities in the majority of river water bodies continue to show signs of response to nutrient pressures with a large proportion being Moderate or Poor status suggesting enrichment to some degree. It is possible that biological components within rivers may not yet have responded to reductions in nutrient loading to river water bodies, and changes in trophic status will need to be monitored over a longer time period.
6. The assessment of 27 surveillance lakes under the WFD in 2006-2008 confirms that the majority (70%) of lakes in Northern Ireland continue to display trophic conditions indicative of nutrient enrichment, including the three largest lakes, Lough Neagh and Lower and Upper Lough Erne. This is in agreement with previous assessments carried out in 2000-2005. The lack of change in lake systems may not be unexpected for a variety of reasons including differences highly related to individual lake typologies e.g. flushing times of these systems and the release of phosphorus reserves already built up in sediments.
7. The assessment of coastal and transitional waters under the WFD in 2007-2009 broadly aligns with previous assessments under the Nitrates and UWWT Directives. The sites classed as Moderate or lower for trophic status are Belfast Harbour, Quoile Pondage and the Tidal Lagan. Sites which have failed the dissolved inorganic nitrogen criterion but passed the biological criteria will invoke a ‘checking procedure’ to refine classification before further measures are required. As the marine receiving waters are at the very end of the catchment, it is anticipated that improvements will be slowest to manifest in these areas.
8. The results of water quality assessments are not unexpected, given that nearly all assessments are based on water quality up to 2008 i.e. prior to operation of all measures within the 2006 NAP Regulations on 1 January 2009. Trends in nutrient use in agriculture
9. Northern Ireland farming continues to be a predominantly grass-based system. However, in general the numbers of sheep and pigs on farms in Northern Ireland are declining, whilst cattle numbers remain stable and poultry numbers are increasing.
Full report available at www.doeni.gov.uk/index/protect_the_environment/water/nitrates_.htm
