Discharge of water
15.—(1) DLRL may use any watercourse or any public sewer or drain for the drainage of water in connection with the construction, operation or maintenance of the authorised works and for that purpose may lay down, take up and alter pipes and may, on any land within the Order limits, make openings into, and connections with, the watercourse, sewer or drain.
(2) Any dispute arising from the exercise of the powers in paragraph (1) to connect to or use a public sewer or drain shall be determined as if it were a dispute under section 106 of the Water Industry Act 1991(1).
(3) DLRL shall not discharge any water into any watercourse, public sewer or drain except with the consent of the person to whom it belongs; and such consent may be given subject to such terms and conditions as he may reasonably impose but shall not be unreasonably withheld.
(4) DLRL shall not make any opening into any public sewer or drain except in accordance with plans approved by, and under the superintendence (if provided) of, the person to whom the sewer or drain belongs, but such approval shall not be unreasonably withheld.
(5) DLRL shall not, in the exercise of the powers conferred by this article, damage or interfere with the bed or banks of any watercourse forming part of a main river.
(6) DLRL shall take such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that any water discharged into a watercourse or 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 or any other polluting material.
(7) 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(2).
(8) In this article—
(a)“public sewer or drain” means a sewer or drain which belongs to a sewerage undertaker, the Environment Agency, an internal drainage board, a local authority, or a harbour authority within the meaning of the Harbours Act 1964(3);
(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.