Lib Dem council leader calls for more scrutiny of environmental watchdog
The leader of the Liberal Democrats on Scottish Borders Council has called for an environmental watchdog to face greater local scrutiny following reports of raw sewage being released in a river.
Kelso & District’s Councillor Euan Robson is calling for SEPA (the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) and Scottish Water to face greater accountability.
He’d like to see something developed that is closer to the current liaison committee SBC has in place with Police Scotland.
He said: “These are public bodies which really do need to be opened up to greater scrutiny at local level.
“It’s not good enough for the council, the local authority after all, to read about the release of raw sewage from St Boswells into the Tweed and the transshipment of landfill waste in ‘one hundred lorries a day’ in the papers or hear it on the news the next day with only a minimal chance of asking questions of SEPA in particular and also Scottish Water.
“My view has always been that accountability should be shared at both national and local level. Scottish Ministers have demonstrated their inability or incapacity to sort out these issues partly I suspect because they have little clue as to the scale of problems or how they should be addressed on the ground.
“New analysis by the Scottish Liberal Democrats for example reveals that in Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire alone sewage was dumped 398 times but the total volume was not even recorded by regulators or water managers.
“My concern wearing another hat as President of Kelso Angling Association is not only about water quality and the impact on fish stocks and other aquatic life but also the health of local anglers.
“We need a local liaison committee with investigatory powers to determine what happens and why and then how to rid ourselves of these problems.
“The current centralised model so beloved of the SNP government in so many areas of public life, has been proven not to work – it’s time to change”
In response, David Cooper, senior manager at SEPA’s Water and Land Unit said the agency has required Scottish Water to produce the Improving Urban Waters Routemap which sets out a delivery plan to improve discharges from Combined Sewer Overflows and improve understanding of when and where discharges occur.
He added: “Scottish Water has since installed 1,000 new monitors at sewerage outfalls within 2km of all designated bathing waters. This near real-time information is now available to the public on Scottish Water’s overflow map. We will continue to monitor Scottish Water’s progress against delivery of the Routemap commitments, using our regulatory powers if required.
“Regarding the recent sewage incident at St Boswells, SEPA were made aware on the evening of Monday 9th June and immediately reported it to Scottish Water. Scottish Water had already been made aware of the incident, fixed it and cleared the debris, prior to SEPA being informed by the public.
“We carried out an inspection of the area at the discharge point on Tuesday 10th June and did not observe any sewage or sewage related debris.
“SEPA received a further notification from a member of the public on the evening of Thursday 12th June which contained a link to a video that SEPA had been sent on the evening on Monday 9th June. A further inspection was carried out by a SEPA officer on Friday 13th June which confirmed there was no ongoing pollution incident.”