Environment Agency breaks its own rules

Environment Agency breaks its own rules
(This page is somewhat out of date but it's still useful reading)

The Environment Agency was set up by the Environment Act 1995. This commits the Agency to base its decisions on "sound science, information and analysis ..." (1) The UK Government’s paper A Better Quality of Life - A Strategy for Sustainable Development for the UK, in discussing Using scientific knowledge says (2)

When taking decisions, it is important to anticipate early on where scientific advice or research is needed, and to identify sources of information of high calibre. Where possible, evidence should be reviewed from a wide-ranging set of viewpoints

Discussing the precautionary principle it says:-

The Rio Declaration defines the precautionary principle as "where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation’. Precautionary action requires assessment of the costs and benefits of action, and transparency in decision-making."

Discussing applying the precautionary principle it says:-

... each case has to be considered carefully ... Transparency is essential: difficult decisions on precautionary action are most likely where there is reason to think there may be a significant threat, but evidence for its existence is as yet lacking or inconclusive. Decisions should be reviewed to reflect better understanding of risk as more evidence becomes available.
The Environment Agency does not meet all these requirements. The Agency has been given notice that they can no longer rely on NRP's opinion (see this link).
But their idea of reviewing evidence from a wide-ranging set of viewpoints is to rely on NRPB even when they have been shown compelling evidence of NRPB's shortcomings. This takes the form of the Agency letting NRPB be judge, jury, defence counsel and prisoner all at once while they shut the Prosecution counsel (that's us) outside the court.
Some useful detail is in our latest Briefing, Environment Agency at the Cross-roads (as a pdf file), which also tells you what you can do about it.
Nuclear waste policy

The UK Government has begun consulting on what to do with nuclear waste. Link to LLRC's responses

If you are seeing this page full screen (i.e. without a navigation bar on the left) you can't see how the rest of the site is organised.
This Home page link takes you to the index page, which has links to all the topics we discuss on the site [only use it if this page is full screen]

References

1 Environment Act 1995 Section 4, and the "Management Statement" issued by DETR in November 1996

2 The UK Government’s paper A Better Quality of Life - A Strategy for Sustainable Development for the UK (Cm4345), published May 1999 Guiding Principles and Approaches (Chapter 4 ) ( http://www.environment.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/quality/life/index.htm) Send email to: SiteManager@llrc.org with questions or comments about this web site.