Dr. Greg Forde:

The overall licensing is with the EPA. We would be looking for abnormal occurrences and we would carry out spot checks on all of the wastewater treatment plants, but especially the ones about which we might have a concern. I refer to ones that are close to their production capacity and ones that may have a bit of a chequered history. Where we have concerns, we would ensure we would visit them fairly often. Even in the current month I am looking at a discharge pipe from a particular wastewater treatment plant where stuff called sewage fungus grows below it. It shows very poor quality of effluent. When we see that, we will take our own samples and talk to the people in the wastewater treatment plant.

There may be occasions when we put up the yellow flag and say things are not right there and we advise EPA. Both agencies have a role because it will come and check that the plant is discharging as per its licence, but even within that we are watching the quality of the river downstream. I cannot say that we are going into every place on a rigid basis because some of them are being visited far more frequently than others. Some are performing incredibly well because they are much more modern facilities. There must be 20 treatment plants being constructed at the moment throughout the country. There is a big investment programme at the moment which one hopes will lead to improved discharges.

On the specific issue of the River Dee, I do not have any details. It has not been banging my door down recently, so to speak. That might be a good sign.