Discharge of water
13.—(1) The undertaker may use any watercourse or any public sewer or drain for the drainage of water for the purpose of or in connection with the authorised activities and for that purpose may lay down, take up and alter pipes and may, on any land shown within the limits of land to be acquired or used, make openings into, and connections with, a watercourse, public sewer or drain.
(2) The undertaker shall not discharge any water into any watercourse, public sewer or drain except with the consent of the authority to which it belongs and in the case of the River Tyne and Howdon Basin with the consent of the Port Authority; and such consent may be given subject to such terms and conditions as the authority may reasonably impose but shall not be unreasonably withheld.
(3) The undertaker shall not make any opening into a public sewer or drain except in accordance with plans approved by, and under the superintendence (if provided) of, the authority to which the sewer or drain belongs, but such approval shall not be unreasonably withheld.
(4) Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (1) or any consent given under paragraph (2) the undertaker shall not discharge water, whether directly or indirectly, into any public sewer or drain until it shall have implemented to the reasonable satisfaction of the authority to whom such public sewer or drain belongs such measures as are necessary in the reasonable opinion of that authority to avoid any adverse impact upon the undertaking of the authority.
(5) The undertaker shall take such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that any water discharged into a watercourse, public sewer or drain under the powers conferred by this article is as free as may be practicable from gravel, soil or other solid substance or oil or matter in suspension and in the case of water, not being domestic sewage, discharged directly or indirectly into a public sewer or drain from the tunnel crossing, shall secure that it is free from any such substance or matter.
(6) This article does not authorise the entry into controlled waters of any matter whose entry or discharge into controlled waters is prohibited by section 85(1), (2) or (3) of the Water Resources Act 1991(1).
(7) In this article—
(a)“public sewer or drain” means a sewer or drain which belongs to a sewerage undertaker, the Environment Agency, the Port Authority or a local authority;
(b)“watercourse” includes all rivers, streams, ditches, drains, cuts, culverts, dykes, sluices, sewers and passages through which water flows except a public sewer or drain; and
(c)other expressions used both in this article and in the Water Resources Act 1991 have the same meaning as in that Act.