Water Industry (Scotland) Act 2002 Explanatory Notes

The Act

Part 2 – Drinking Water Quality Regulator

Section 13 – Emergencies

39.This section makes provision for circumstances where a contravention of a drinking water quality duty by a public water supplier is causing a significant risk to public health or to the quality of the public drinking water supply such that urgent remedial action is needed. In such a case the Regulator can serve an emergency notice requiring the water supplier to take remedial action by a specified date (subsection (2)). Additionally, the Regulator is given the same power as section 12 gives in relation to enforcement notices, i.e. power to enter any premises to carry out work to address the emergency and then to recover the cost of carrying out the work (subsection (3)). There is similar supplementary provision in subsections (4) to (8) to that set out in section 12(3) to (7).