Updated Guidance on Direct Discharges to Groundwater
The EPA have published new guidance which addresses direct discharges to groundwater from point sources of potential pollution. It supplements the earlier report published by the EPA in 2011 entitled “Guidance on the Authorisation of Discharges to Groundwater” which focused on the technical assessment of indirect discharges to groundwater.
The new guidance has the following primary objectives:
- Present an overview of the Groundwater Regulations with respect to direct discharges to groundwater (Section 2).
- Provide specific examples of different types of direct discharges (Section 3)
- Describe conditions under which direct discharges of domestic type wastewater effluents may be considered in the absence of suitable or feasible alternatives (Section 4).
Whereas the first two objectives deal with direct discharges in a general sense, the last objective examines direct discharges of domestic-type wastewater effluent in greater detail.
Source: EPA