Press Release: Urban waste water treatment: Commission sends final warning to UK over inadequate implementation

The European Commission was sending a final written warning to the United Kingdom on 12 January 2005, asking it to comply with the 1991 Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. Under this Directive, sewage and other wastewater from all agglomerations with populations of over 15,000 is required to undergo secondary-level (i.e. biological) treatment before being discharged into rivers and other water bodies. The necessary treatment plants to achieve this should have been operational by 31 December 2000, but in the UK this had not yet been done for 14 agglomerations.