Heathrow publishes water quality strategy for next five years

BAA Heathrow today published its Water Quality Strategy for the next five years. The new report sets out how the company will manage surface, foul and ground water at the airport up to 2008, detailing action plans that will be followed in achieving this.

The strategy outlines the airport's pollution control practices, and the performance and compliance monitoring that will be carried out. It also outlines how BAA Heathrow's water quality management meets the requirements of UK and European law and policy.

Water quality management at Heathrow is regulated by the Environment Agency and Thames Water. Both have been consulted during the development of this new strategy.

Claire Williams, head of environment at BAA Heathrow said: "We take the management of water quality at Heathrow very seriously, and by publishing this strategy we can ensure that our stakeholders are kept informed and able to monitor our progress. We will be working closely with the Environment Agency and Thames Water to make sure our action plan minimises water quality impacts around the airport."

The strategy sets out six objectives for water quality management at Heathrow:

• Airport water quality management, ensuring best practice and liaison with the Environment Agency and Thames Water
• Pollution prevention across a range of airport activities
• Infrastructure maintenance and improvement, including maximising use of Heathrow's constructed wetlands facility
• Compliance with environmental regulations and consents, continuing a programme of monthly monitoring of the quality of all waste water discharges
• Clean-up of historic contamination arising from the airport, identifying opportunities for the remediation of contaminated groundwater on airport
• Flood prevention, water level management and conservation, including ensuring environmental assessments identify any potential flooding implications of new developments

Progress against these objectives will be published in BAA Heathrow's annual sustainability report.