Regional Compliance Monitoring A marine aggregate industry perspective Mark Russell Director, British Marine Aggregate Producers Association.

Regional Compliance Monitoring

A marine aggregate industry

perspective

Mark Russell

Director, British Marine Aggregate Producers

Association

When you know there is a wave coming…

You can position yourselves to take advantage…

Or not…!

Why a regional approach?

• Common drivers – three consenting phases for existing activities since 2008

• Distribution of industry interests meant common EIA issues to address – delivered through voluntary MAREAs

• Common benefits to operators - saves time & effort - saves cost - delivers a consistent outcome

• Similar benefits to regulators & advisors – best use of resources

By the end of 2014, this approach supported delivery of >100 consents

Context to regional monitoring

• Moving from a position where most historic licences didn’t have monitoring requirements to a position where every licence has a minimum requirement

• Cost implications – increased cost per tonne dredged (commodity price doesn’t change, monitoring simply adds to the cost base)

• Time/effort implications – to deliver the requirements in the right way and at the right time

• Capacity implications – across operators, regulators, advisors and contractors

Re-licensing programme provided an opportunity for change

Shift in monitoring rationale• Historic monitoring simply described impacts of extraction

on benthos & sediment: physical disturbance effect – primary (removal) and secondary (plume/sedimentation)

• Research & evidence identified the condition of seabed sediments post-extraction as the key variable for successful faunal recovery

• Focus shifting to monitoring seabed sediments (PSD) to ensure similar conditions maintained – development partnership funded (Defra/MMO/TCE/industry)

• Acceptable Change Limits (ACL) defined for individual licences (based on PSD ranges of faunal assemblages) – more appropriate for compliance & management & more cost-effective

Definition of ACL requires regional data

Change in means of delivery• Five RSMP surveys are currently

underway

• Deliver regional sediment/benthic baseline data for over 60 licence/application areas

• Growing recognition of the advantages of a joined up approach – tangible benefits

• But it can be complicated, both from a regulatory/compliance viewpoint but also in terms of practical delivery

• Growing confidence from the experience through ‘learning by doing’.

The next steps...

• Develop standard specification and programme for all common survey/ reporting obligations throughout licence term (not just seabed sediments)

• To realise its potential at a regional scale it will require some flexibility – both from operators, but also from regulators & advisors

• Root & branch review or half-way house solution? Existing conditions/ timings make it more complicated – not starting from scratch as per RSMP

• There are challenges, but equally there are enormous benefits to be realised for all – particularly in the long term (15-30 years+)

Summary

A regional approach to monitoring has the potential to enable the

delivery of more cost effective and consistent compliance data and

therefore support better regulation

• Better for operators

• Better for regulators

• Better for statutory advisors

While not simple, where common benefits are identified the

collective risks of developing new approaches can be shared

For further information on regional monitoring:

Key references for the RSMP:

Cooper, K.M., 2012. Setting limits for acceptable change in sediment particle size composition following marine aggregate dredging. Marine Pollution Bulletin 64, 1667 - 1677.

Cooper, K.M., 2013. Setting limits for acceptable change in sediment particle size composition: testing a new approach to managing marine aggregate dredging? Marine Pollution Bulletin 73, 86 – 97.

Cooper, K.M., 2013. Marine aggregate dredging: a new regional approach to environmental monitoring. PhD Thesis. University of East Anglia: UK.

[email protected]

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