LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th February, 2021) No fines have been issued and no prosecutions have taken place in England for violations of a legislation that came into effect in 2018 to reduce water pollution, although the Environment Agency has documented 243 breaches of the rules, The Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.
Citing data obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, the paper said that the region with the most breaches recorded was Devon and Cornwall, with 75, followed by Wessex with 52.
Conservation organizations also quoted by The Guardian claimed, however, that the violations recorded are a fraction of the actual number.
"This legislation is being violated on a regular basis across the country by farms and virtually nothing is being done to monitor it or enforce it," said Mark Lloyd, chief executive of a charity that works to protect Britain's lakes and waterways.
According to the campaigner, all the efforts put into crafting the rules and consulting has proven to be a "complete waste of time," because the Environment Agency lacks the resources to enforce the legislation designed to prevent damaging pollutants such as animal waste and fertilizers from running into rivers.
The paper also quoted Rhiannon Niven, a senior policy officer at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, who found the fact that no penalties had been issued for breaches of the rules "shocking."
"It is outrageous that this legislation isn't being enforced. Proper implementation of these regulations needs to be a much higher priority," she said.
Under the legislation, violators could be fined with �100 ($138) or �300 ($414) or received the so-called "variable money penalties", which can be as much as �250,000 ($345,086), the paper said.
A 2018 government report found that enforcement of the farming rules for water was "nowhere near effective enough" as of the Environment Agency's 10,600 staff only 40 were involved with farm inspections, meaning that farms were likely to be inspected only once every 200 years.
