PROVISION OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PLAN GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PLAN FRAMEWORK Final March 2006 Client: Dwr Cymru Welsh Water Sub-Title: Provision of an Environmental Monitoring Plan: Generic Environmental Monitoring Plan Framework Project No: CC147 Date of Issue: 21 March 2006 Status: Final Version No: V1 Produced By Authorised For Release By …………………………………………… …………………………………………………… Liz Baker Dr. Kieran Conlan Principal Environmental Scientist Director Cascade Consulting (Environment and Planning) Ltd Directors: Dr Kieran Conlan, Dr Thomasine Rudd, Helena Conlan Registered Office: Enterprise House, Manchester Science Park Lloyd Street North, Manchester, M15 6SE Tel: 0161 227 9777 Fax: 0161 227 1777 e mail: [email protected] Registered in England and Wales No. 4176068. VAT No.: 703 4163 72 Dwr Cymru Welsh Water Provision of an Environmental Monitoring Plan Final Generic EMP Framework Contents 1 INTRODUCTION............................................................................1 1.1 PURPOSE OF THE GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PLAN FRAMEWORK REPORT..................................................................................... 1 1.2 REQUIREMENT FOR AN ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PLAN............2 1.3 APPROACH AND CONTENT OF THE GENERIC EMP FRAMEWORK REPORT ..............................................................................................................3 2 BACKGROUND TO DCWW’S WATER RESOURCES AND DROUGHT PLANNING ..................................................................5 2.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................5 2.2 WATER RESOURCE STRATEGY.......................................................................5 2.3 DROUGHT OPTIONS WITHIN WATER RESOURCE ZONES.........................5 2.4 WATER RESOURCE OPTIONS REQUIRING DROUGHT PERMISSIONS.....6 3 DATA SOURCES AND CONSULTATION .......................................10 3.1 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................10 3.2 CONSULTATION..............................................................................................10 3.3 DATA COLLECTION......................................................................................... 11 4 DESCRIPTION OF THE DROUGHT PERMIT/DROUGHT ORDER SITES...........................................................................................14 4.1 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................14 4.2 PROTECTED SITES.......................................................................................... 15 4.3 ENVIRONMENTAL BASELINE CONDITIONS ..............................................16 4.4 ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PLAN .....................................................16 5 ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND MITIGATION.................18 5.1 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................18 5.2 SITE SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING .....................................19 5.3 GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING ..............................................23 5.4 MITIGATION ................................................................................................... 48 6 COMPLIANCE WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE EA’S WATER COMPANY GUIDELINES ............................................................. 51 7 REFERENCES ..............................................................................56 Appendices Appendix 1 Water Company Drought Plan Guidelines 2005, Version 2.0, October 2005, Environment Agency Cascade Consulting with APEM Dwr Cymru Welsh Water Provision of an Environmental Monitoring Plan Final Generic EMP Framework List of Tables Table 2.1 DO/DP Site Locations and Extent of Hydrological Influence Table 2.2 DO/DP Schemes Grouped by Water Resource Type, Illustrating the Conditions of a DO/DP, the Water Resources Benefit and Primary Hydrological Impacts Table 5.1 Generic Monitoring Recommendations Table 6.1 Compliance of this Generic EMP Framework with the EA’s “Water Company Drought Plan Guidelines 2005” Cascade Consulting with APEM Dwr Cymru Welsh Water Provision of an Environmental Monitoring Plan Final Generic EMP Framework 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 PURPOSE OF THE GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PLAN FRAMEWORK REPORT The overall objective of the project is to produce an environmental monitoring plan (EMP) in support of Dwr Cymru Welsh Water’s (DCWW) Final Drought Plan. This entails preparing EMPs for 34 drought order (DO) or drought permit (DP) sites that have been selected throughout North, South West and South East Wales. The overall scope of work is intended to meet the requirements of Sections 8.1 (Monitoring ) and 8.2 ( Mitigation ) of the EA’s Water Company Drought Plan Guidelines (EA, 2005) (see Appendix 1). To date, a Phase 1 Scoping Report (Cascade Consulting with APEM, 2006) has been completed. The key objective of the Phase 1 Scoping Report was to provide an initial review and ranking of all 34 DO/DP sites within the DCWW region. Each site has been assessed based on three factors: likelihood of use, environmental sensitivity and flow and level effects of the DO/DP. These have each been defined as being of minor, moderate or major significance. The methodology has used a staged approach to establish where each DO/DP site falls within the ranking. • Step 1 is to consider ‘likelihood of use’. If there is a major likelihood of use, the sites are automatically classed as high priority. For minor likelihood of use, sites are classed as low priority. • Step 2 is to rank the sites on environmental sensitivity (major to minor). • Step 3 is to rank the sites on flow and level effects of the DO/DP. By following this approach, a site with a major likelihood of use, minor environmental sensitivity, and minor flow and level effects is ranked higher than a site with moderate likelihood of use, major environmental sensitivity and moderate flow and level effects. This does not mean that the EMP for the latter will be any less detailed than that for the former. It is simply a way of prioritising which EMPs will need to be prepared first. Within Phase 2, a separate EMP report will be completed for each of the 34 DO/DP sites. The final reports will be fundamentally the same, documenting the findings and outlining the EMP and mitigation for each site. The approach for preparing the EMPs for higher and lower ranked sites will also be similar. However, for the lower ranked sites, less intensive work will be undertaken to develop the monitoring Cascade Consulting with APEM 1 Dwr Cymru Welsh Water Provision of an Environmental Monitoring Plan Final Generic EMP Framework strategies. Rather, lessons learnt in undertaking the monitoring strategies for the higher ranked sites, e.g. in terms of deriving the number of monitoring sites along a stretch of river, will inform recommendations for the preparation of the later EMPs. Under Section 7.6 of the EA’s Water Company Drought Plan Guidelines (EA, 2005), “details of completed, ongoing or planned studies for proposed drought permit or drought order sites should be included in a company’s drought plan. It is in the interest of a water company to provide the results of completed studies to the EA for comment. This early provision of information will enable the EA to make a preliminary assessment and advise whether any additional data would be required in support of a drought permit or drought order application. Drought permits and drought orders may take up to eight weeks from initiation to implementation and even actions wholly within the control of the water company will often take some time to implement. The early provision of information will assist the EA in processing a drought permit application or responding to a drought order application promptly and will help identify any potential issues in advance”. Phase 2 of the overall project, to prepare the 34 site specific EMPs, is currently underway. It is anticipated that the EMPs will be published in stages in the next few months, culminating in completion of all of these reports before June 2007 when they will be published with the Final Drought Plan. In the meantime, such reports as have been completed will be published on Welsh Water’s web-site as they become available. This Generic EMP Framework Report has, therefore, been prepared in support of DCWW’s Draft Drought Plan for submission to the National Assembly of Wales (NAW) for the required deadline of 31 st March 2006. It is intended that this report will demonstrate the extent to which DCWW has progressed with the detailed EMPs for its DO/DP sites, whilst also providing generic monitoring recommendations to be used in the preparation of the site specific EMPs. In the event of a drought occurring in 2006 where there is a requirement for DCWW to make an application for a DO/DP prior to the preparation of a site specific EMP report, this Generic EMP Framework can be applied to provide guidance on the necessary monitoring required at a site during and following the implementation of the DO/DP. 1.2 REQUIREMENT FOR AN ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PLAN The background to the requirement for DCWW to establish an EMP is described in Section 1.2 of the Phase 1 Scoping Report (Cascade Consulting with APEM, 2006). Additional background to DCWW’s water resources and drought planning activities is provided in Section 2 of this Generic EMP Framework Report. 2 Cascade Consulting with