Treatment plant discharge to ditch

[Wagas]

How do you go about getting permission to discharge directly to ditch? Do you even need permission? My LA has referred me to Anglian Water who in turn have referred me to the Enviro Agency but I was wondering if anyone here knows. Thanks

[ToughButterCup]

You need to follow the General Binding Rules. 

But....

Round here, everyone seems to do exactly what they want with - apparently-  no reference to anyone. 

[recoveringbuilder]

In Scotland we have to have permission from Sepa so I’m guessing there’s an English equivalent??

[ProDave]

@JSHarris will hopefully see this as he has done this, and found it easy to get permission from the Environment Agency.

 

It is a LOT harder in Scotland to get permission from SEPA.

[Jeremy Harris]

The EA were generally a PITA with regard to flood risk, run off from the building site, etc when we were getting PP, but when I asked them if I could discharge our treatment plant to the stream alongside our lane they gave consent within a couple of hours, with a (free) permit to discharge sent by email.  The process was easy; all they needed to know was that the stream ran all year around (they don't officially allow a discharge to a stream or ditch that doesn't have water in all year around).

[joe90]

I discharge to a ditch that is dry a couple of months a year. Got permission from EA which was quite easy and they were a great help (I did not know which river water eventually went to but they found it fir me). I had to use a rumble drain to connect treatment plant to the ditch which consisted of a trench with drainage stone, perforated pipe then Topped with membrane then soil. Reason is when the ditch is dry outfall will soak into rumble drain but when wet all will flow away.

[recoveringbuilder]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

@JSHarris will hopefully see this as he has done this, and found it easy to get permission from the Environment Agency.

 

It is a LOT harder in Scotland to get permission from SEPA.

We had no problem getting it just had to give them the spec of the treatment plant 

[Roundtuit]

We had to get permission from the local internal drainage board, but no EA involvement.

[Redoctober]

4 hours ago, Christine Walker said:

We had no problem getting it just had to give them the spec of the treatment plant 

Plus 1 to that. [SEPA]

[Wagas]

Stupid question but I'm guessing the reason you can't discharge directly into a dry ditch is because of smell?

[joe90]

49 minutes ago, Wagas said:

Stupid question but I'm guessing the reason you can't discharge directly into a dry ditch is because of smell?

 

The waste has to be washed away, my treatment plant can discharge to a ditch that is only wet most of the year if used in conjunction with a rumble drain.

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Wagas said:

Stupid question but I'm guessing the reason you can't discharge directly into a dry ditch is because of smell?

You discharge to a watercourse when the ground conditions won't work for a soakaway. They work on the principle of dilution. If there is no flow there is no dilution.

[Temp]

Soakaways didn't work on our site so stated in our planning application we would discharge to a piped ditch in the road. I believe the EA were a statutory consultee and they sent a letter back mentioning that there had been a flooding issue just down the road/hill from us. They didn't say no but said they said they "wouldn't want us to make flooding worse".

 

So we told the planners we were going to install a rainwater recycling tank with the overflow going to the piped ditch. I don't know if they passed that information onto the EA but we never heard any more about it. The rainwater tank is only used for garden/car washing so in wet weather I suspect it's full most of the time and 100% goes out the overflow.

 

Someone mentioned a trick he had used on other houses.. When connecting to the services in the road lay some perforated pipe in the trench and back fill with gravel. The services could well already be in gravel so you end up forming a massive long soakaway that conveniently leads off site, down the road, around the corner.... I suspect this is frowned upon so you didn't hear it from me.