When SEPA do review an abstraction licence, the process,
we have been told, will be a matter for
SEPA as official
regulators. However, contentious proposals
will be advertised after SEPA has formulated its own opinion and only then will wider third party views
will
be sought. Ultimately the final decision in
controversial cases will rest with the Scottish
Government. The Scottish
Government will also ultimately sign off each
River Basin Management Plan. It is not clear to what extent
the Scottish Government may be involved in directing
SEPA’s review process, but this presumably may occur.
However, it seems quite clear that the Directive intended the full participation of society when considering improvement measures. The European Commission's website states that:
" Caring for Europe 's waters will require more involvement of citizens, interested parties, non-governmental organisations (NGOs). To that end the Water Framework Directive will require information and consultation when river basin management plans are established: the river basin management plan must be issued in draft, and the background documentation on which the decisions are based must be made accessible.....Too often in the past implementation has been left unexamined until it is too late - until Member States are already woefully behind schedule and out of compliance."
It was initially hoped that much might be delivered
by the first, the 2009, Scottish River Basin Management Plan. It
is now clear that it will of necessity be of
relatively limited scope owing to the relatively
short timescale now available and because SEPA
have still a significant amount of preparatory
work to do to administer this process.
While there may not be time to consider activities which impact on rivers in a complex way (e.g. ecological impacts downstream of reservoirs), we think there is a lot which could still be achieved in the first, 2009, Plan, especially with regard to water abstraction where the effects and remedies are often very apparent.
We think that an effort really should be made to make significant gains in this area first time round. Otherwise the first Scottish River Basin Management Plan may be in danger of delivering very little! The European Commission's quote "woefully behind schedule and out of compliance" springs to mind!
Since there seems little official scope to directly influence SEPA's review process the most obvious way for third parties to exert influence must be to make representation to the Scottish Government direcly. This is exactly what hydro operators have been doing.
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