Guidelines to Statutory Order on the Licensing of Waste Water Discharges 17. Other provisions17.1 Register of licences 17.1 Register of licences Section 50 of the Statutory Order requires the licensing authority to keep a register of all licences issued under the Statutory Order. The register is to include information about the location of the licensed waste water systems as well as of the waters into which the waste water is discharged. Under section 83(1) of the Environmental Protection Act, the licensing authority may be ordered to disclose the registered data for the evaluation of matters governed by the Act. 17.2 General provisions on conditions for discharge licences In general, a discharge licence must be issued upon application from a landowner/enterprise. Consequently, the licensing or supervisory authority is not entitled to demand that a requested revision of an existing licence must be applied for, unless the landowner/enterprise is required to apply according to section 2 of the Statutory Order. In connection with the revision of an existing discharge licence, the licensing authority may order the licence holder to submit information on conditions relating to the waste water discharge concerned under section 72 of the Environmental Protection Act. On the basis of this information an enforcement notice may be issued, providing for a change of conditions for waste water discharges under section 30 of the Environmental Protection Act, or for discharges into the soil under section 20 of the said Act. 17.2.1 Fixed-term licences Section 51(2) of the Statutory Order provides that licences issued under the Statutory Order may be limited in time. This may be appropriate in a number of situations, e.g. in the case of discharges from waste water treatment plants where it is uncertain whether permanent requirements can be met with the currently used technology. In this case, indicative requirements may be set for a certain period, after which the licensing authority may determine whether the requirements are to apply on a permanent basis. Fixed-term licences may also be appropriate where the loads of industrial effluents connected to municipal waste water treatment plants are subject to planned gradual reduction, depending on the reduction achievable before discharge from the enterprise by introducing cleaner technology, etc. 17.2.2 Provisions on supervision and monitoring Licences issued under the Statutory Order should provide for supervision and monitoring, including internal control (monitoring by licence holders). The extent of supervision and monitoring should be determined according to the principle of proportionality, i.e. the more important the licence in terms of pollution, the greater the need for supervision and monitoring. It is an important principle in prescribing terms and conditions for a discharge licence that it must be done in a manner that allows monitoring according to a well-established procedure. Conditions that cannot be monitored or are inadequately defined are impossible to enforce in practice. Part 8 provides minimum conditions for sampling of discharges for the purpose of internal control. In addition, it is for the licensing authority to assess the need for supervision and monitoring. For discharges from waste water treatment plants the Danish Standard, DS 2399, "Effluence control – Control computation of effluence data" provides guidelines for monitoring and the number of samples to be taken. For industrial connections to municipal waste water systems, Danish EPA Guidelines No. 6, 1994, "Guidelines for licensing the connection of industrial effluents to municipal waste water systems" provide monitoring guidelines and verification rules, cf. Chap. 8 of these Guidelines. 17.3 Registration On technical or planning grounds, public or private waste water systems sometimes have to be sited on land not belonging to the municipality. In that case, the siting of a waste water system may be subject to a voluntary agreement entered into with the landowner concerned. If it is not possible to make such an agreement with the landowner, the local council must instead acquire the necessary land for the installation compulsorily, cf. Part 8 of the Environmental Protection Act. In order to safeguard the siting of the installation against objections from future owners of the land and against legal proceedings in general, a covenant must be registered on the land, both in the case of a voluntary agreement and compulsory acquisition. The covenant is to describe the ownership of specific areas, subject to any restrictions as to use or other restrictions, obtained under the agreement or by compulsory acquisition. In addition, a covenant should specify the status of the waste water system, so that it appears from the land register whether the system is public or private. This is also important in relation to the Act on payment rules for waste water installations etc., under which the local council is not authorised to operate on private land for funds provided by the public waste water service, except for the purpose of establishing disposal systems under section 7a of the said Act.
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