A Socio‐Economic Approach To Water Pollution Law Enforcement in England and Wales

The purpose of this article is to examine, purely from the law enforcement viewpoint, the present United Kingdom consent system for controlling direct discharges of effluent into rivers vis‐a‐vis an effluent pricing system. The article outlines the system of law enforcement in existence prior to 1974 and the difficulties of estimating an effluent tax to bring about the same level of discharge as under present consents. Empirical data are produced which, although great care needs to be taken in their interpretation, indicate that if firms are cost minimisers a barely positive tax level would have the same effect on restricting discharges at plant level as the present system if litigation were the only enforcement mechanism. However, the prevalence of “arm twisting” makes judgements on the efficiency of the conciliatory methods of environmental law enforcement very difficult. Finally, in view of the proposals for the setting up of a unified pollution inspectorate, a comparison is made between methods of enforcing breaches of air and water pollution laws, with illegal discharges of oil.