Role of  Water Management Unit field staff

For the purpose of water pollution management Northern Ireland is divided into nine areas.

Most of these areas have three staff consisting of an Environmental Health (Rivers) Officer (EHRO) or Senior Water Quality Inspector (SWQI) and a number of Water Quality Inspectors (WQIs).

These staff work on a full-time basis on behalf of Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) backed up by additional officers as required.

The Water Management Unit of the NIEA relies on hiring outside staff to meet its responsibilities under UK and EU law.

At present, seven separate agencies provide field staff, approximately 39 field staff in total, to carry out duties ranging from pollution investigation to sampling.

The field staff can be broken into two groups:

• Staff from the four Group Environmental Health Committees and Belfast City Council carry out sampling, pollution control and advice, consents, application processing, emergency pollution response, and enforcement. This currently involves 28 full-time staff.

• Staff from the Fisheries Conservancy Board (FCB) and the Loughs Agency (LA) investigate reports of water pollution (mainly from agricultural sources), sampling, pollution control, and enforcement. FCB and LA provide approximately seven and five full time staff respectively.