Prevention of river pollution : report of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Sub-committee of the Central Advisory Water Committee.

  • Great Britain. Central Advisory Water Committee. Rivers Pollution Prevention Sub-Committee.
Date:
1949
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prevention of river pollution : report of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Sub-committee of the Central Advisory Water Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/80 (page 20)
    done. The latest provision in a local Act which incorporates these principles, and in which the term “solid matter” has a more comprehensive meaning, is Section 43 of the Act of 1938, which we reproduce in Appendix B. 50. It will be noted that solid matter as defined in this Section includes solid refuse from any mine or pitshaft. This is not covered by the definition in Section 2 of the Act of 1876, though by Section 5 it is an offence to let solid matter from a mine enter a stream “in such quantities as to prejudicially interfere with its due flow,” or to allow any poisonous noxious or polluting solid matter from a mine to enter a stream. The National Coal Board said that while in principle they would agree to the general application of the provision in the Act of 1938, there were certain circumstances in which they would be unable to comply with it. There are, they say, places, particularly in the steep and narrow valleys of South Wales, in which it is virtually im- possible to site a pit heap so far away from the stream that there is no risk of its slipping, and they claimed that more than any other industry, they have large volumes of matter to dispose of in restricted spaces. 51. Apart from this (to which we refer in the following paragraph) we found little opposition to the general application of a provision similar to that in the Act of 1938, and we consider that the general law should be revised on similar lines. In a later part of our Report which refers to sewage pollution and manufacturing and mining pollution (Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Act of 1876) we deal with pollution by offensive and injurious solid matter in a comprehensive provision which also deals with liquid pollution. We therefore consider it unnecessary to make separate provision for solid matter of that nature. We recommend that, with this exception, the provisions relating to pollution from solid matter should follow, in principle, Section 43 of the Act of 1938. The law should include safeguards for bona fide acts such as those mentioned in the proviso to the Lancashire Section. 52. We feel that the particular difficulty mentioned by the National Coal Board should be recognised and that it may also apply to other mines or quarries. We recommend that the law should contain a reservation that an offence shall not arise in respect of deposits of solid matter from a mine or quarry if the Court is satisfied that no other site for the deposit is reasonably practicable and that all reasonable and practical steps have been taken, within a reasonable cost, to prevent the solid matter from passing into the stream. 53. We also considered Section 96 of the Lee Conservancy Act, 1868, which makes it an offence for any person without reasonable excuse (the burden of proof to lie on him) to place any manure heap or other collection of offensive or injurious matter on the banks of the river or any of its tributaries so that any offensive or injurious matter will drain or pass into them. There was considerable support for such a restriction, provided that it did not interfere with normal agricultural operations. We recommend that it be incorporated in the revised provision relating to solid matter with the reservation that this restriction be applied only for a limited distance from the river bank. 54. There is a further provision in the Act of 1938 (Section 44) which gives the Board power to require a person who has been convicted of an offence in respect of solid matter to remove the matter within a specified time. If he . fails to comply the Board may notify the sanitary authority of the district in which the offence is committed, and that authority may remove the matter and recover the cost and expenses summarily as a civil debt. There was general acceptance of the view that in certain circumstances the River Board should be able to require the removal of solid matter which has wrongfully been allowed to enter the river, and we agree that the law should give them