Severn Trent Water Ltd Draft Drought Plan 2013 Strategic Environmental Assessment Environmental Report May 2013 Severn Trent Water Ltd Draft Drought Plan 2013 SEA Environmental Report Final -This page has been left blank to enable double sided printing- Cascade Consulting Severn Trent Water Ltd Draft Drought Plan 2013 SEA Environmental Report Final Client: Severn Trent Water Limited Title: Draft Drought Plan 2013: Strategic Environmental Assessment Environmental Report Project No: CC557 Date of Issue: 09 May 2013 Status: Final Version No: 1.0 Produced By Authorised for Release By …………………………………………. …………………………………… Dr Phil Metcalfe John Sanders Senior Environmental Scientist Director CONTACT DETAILS CASCADE CONSULTING Enterprise House Manchester Science Park Lloyd St North Manchester M15 6SE Tel: 0161 227 9777 Fax: 0161 227 1777 Cascade Consulting Severn Trent Water Ltd Draft Drought Plan 2013 SEA Environmental Report Final -This page has been left blank to enable double sided printing- Cascade Consulting Severn Trent Water Ltd Draft Drought Plan 2013 SEA Environmental Report Final Contents Non Technical Summary ......................................................................... 1 1 Introduction to SEA and Drought Plan .............................................. 9 1.1 Background and Purpose of Report ................................................................... 9 1.2 Application of SEA to Drought Planning ........................................................... 9 1.3 Severn Trent Water Supply System and Drought Planning ............................. 13 1.4 Severn Trent Water's Draft Drought Plan 2013 ............................................... 17 1.5 Drought permit/order Environmental Assessment Reports ........................... 22 1.6 Stages of SEA Process ...................................................................................... 23 1.7 Structure of the Environmental Report ........................................................... 25 1.8 Consultation ..................................................................................................... 26 2 Baseline and Context ....................................................................... 27 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 27 2.2 Review of Policies, Plans and Programmes ..................................................... 27 2.3 Review of Baseline Conditions ......................................................................... 32 2.4 Summary of Key Sustainability Issues ............................................................. 40 3 Methodology .................................................................................... 43 3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 43 3.2 Assessment Methodology and SEA Framework .............................................. 43 3.3 Primary Assessment ........................................................................................ 49 3.4 Interactions Between Objectives ...................................................................... 51 3.5 Secondary, Cumulative and Synergistic Environmental Effects Assessment . 53 3.6 Limitations of the Study .................................................................................. 54 4 Assessment of Drought Options ....................................................... 56 4.1 Assessment of Schemes Against SEA Objectives ............................................. 56 4.2 Demand-Side Options ..................................................................................... 56 4.3 Supply Side Options ......................................................................................... 59 4.4 Summary .......................................................................................................... 64 5 Cumulative Assessment ................................................................... 67 5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 67 5.2 Demand Side Options ...................................................................................... 67 5.3 Supply Side Options ......................................................................................... 68 5.4 Cumulative Impacts between Supply Side Options: Conclusions ................... 72 5.5 Environment Agency Drought Plans ............................................................... 72 5.6 Other Water Company Drought Plans ............................................................. 73 5.7 Canal and River Trust Drought Plans ............................................................... 77 5.8 Cumulative Effects with other Plans and Policies ........................................... 78 6 Mitigation and Monitoring ............................................................. 80 6.1 Overview .......................................................................................................... 80 6.2 Mitigation......................................................................................................... 80 6.3 Monitoring ....................................................................................................... 80 7 Summary ......................................................................................... 83 Appendices .......................................................................................... 88 Appendix A ...........................................................................................89 Appendix B ......................................................................................... 105 Appendix C ......................................................................................... 156 Appendix D ......................................................................................... 223 Appendix E ......................................................................................... 227 Cascade Consulting Severn Trent Water Ltd Draft Drought Plan 2013 SEA Environmental Report Final List of Figures Figure 1.1 SEA screening route of Severn Trent Water’s draft Drought Plan 2012 through flow diagram from ODPM (2005) Guidelines Figure 1.2 Severn Trent Water’s Supply Area Figure 1.3 Drought Option Location and Designated Sites in the Severn Trent Water region Figure 2.1 Geographical Extent of Baseline Information Sources Figure 3.1 Effect Significance Figure 3.2 Colour coding of effect significance Figure 3.3 SEA Objective Interaction Matrix Figure 5.1 Cumulative impacts matrix: demand management measures Figure 5.2 Cumulative impacts matrix: supply management measures List of Tables Table 1.1 Demand-side drought management options Table 1.2 Supply-side drought management options Table 1.3 Drought Permit or Drought Order Options Table 1.4 Drought Permit/Order Sites: Environmental Assessment Reports Table 1.5 SEA stages and tasks Table 2.1 Policy, plans and programmes reviewed Table 2.2 Summary of the key sustainability issues identified for the SEA Table 3.1 Derivation of SEA objectives and indicator questions Table 4.1 Visual evaluation matrix summary for demand-side options Table 4.2 Visual evaluation matrix summary for supply-side options List of Appendices Appendix A Statutory consultee responses to the SEA Scoping Report Appendix B Review of policy, plans and programmes Appendix C Review of environmental baseline Appendix D Quality assurance checklist Appendix E Detailed SEA tables for each drought plan option Cascade Consulting Severn Trent Water Ltd Draft Drought Plan 2013 SEA Environmental Report Final NON TECHNICAL SUMMARY Introduction Under the Water Industry Act 1991, Severn Trent Water is required to prepare and update its statutory Drought Plan every 3½ years. This Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has been undertaken on Severn Trent Water’s Draft Drought Plan 2013. This updated Draft Drought Plan provides a comprehensive statement of the actions Severn Trent Water will consider implementing during drought conditions to safeguard essential water supplies to its customers whilst minimising environmental impact. It is consistent with Severn Trent Water’s Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP), the objective of which is to set the strategic plan for maintaining reliable and sustainable water supplies over a 25 year period. Drought Plans encompass a number of drought options that will only be implemented if and when required. Each drought is different in terms of its severity, season, location and duration; each combination of these factors may require a different combination of measures to be implemented. To ensure flexibility of response, the Draft Drought Plan includes a range of temporary demand management (demand-side) and temporary supply enhancement (supply-side) options to help maintain essential water supplies to customers across the Severn Trent Water supply area. SEA of plans and programmes is a statutory requirement under Directive 2001/42/EC, as transposed into UK law by the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004. The purpose of SEA is to help ensure a high level and strategic protection of the environment by incorporating environmental considerations at an early stage in the development and preparation of plans and policy. In the context of drought planning, SEA assists in the identification of the potential environmental impacts of Severn Trent Water’s drought management options,