Specific follow up to MP's question

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But my e-mail refers to an Environmental Incident, won't it get answered
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Thank you for contacting the Environment Agency. Please see below
regarding our response times and environmental incident reporting

You can expect to receive a reply from us within 10 working days for any
general enquiry. Please note that bank holiday days and weekends are not
classed as a working day.

If your enquiry refers to a Simple Exemptions application you can expect
to receive a response within 25 working days.

The Customer Charter (response days) for all enquiries start from the next
working day of you receiving this auto reply from us. For example an
e-mail's customer charter sent to us on a Friday will start on the
following Monday providing this isn't a bank holiday.

For further information on our Customer Charter please see

[1]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/abo...

But my e-mail refers to an Environmental Incident, won't it get answered
sooner?

If you wish to report an incident i.e. pollution, fish in distress,
dumping of hazardous waste, etc please do not use this e-mail service
instead please call our free-phone 24 hour Incident Hotline on 0800 80 70
60. For more details about incident reporting please see:

[2]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/con...

Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally
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If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our
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Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your enquiry regarding when the Environment Agency plans
to publish toxicological and soil guideline value reports for cyanide
and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

The report is currently undergoing development. Our aim is to publish
the report before 30th June 2009. As the report is still in
development, we are unable to provide a more accurate publishing date.
This information is inline with the response given to parliament.

The report will be published by our Science department.

I trust you will find this information helpful.

Kind regards

Lauren Headon
Customer Service Advisor
Environment Agency
National Customer Contact Centre
08708 506 506

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show quoted sections

Thank you for contacting the Environment Agency. Please see below
regarding our response times and environmental incident reporting

You can expect to receive a reply from us within 10 working days for any
general enquiry. Please note that bank holiday days and weekends are not
classed as a working day.

If your enquiry refers to a Simple Exemptions application you can expect
to receive a response within 25 working days.

The Customer Charter (response days) for all enquiries start from the next
working day of you receiving this auto reply from us. For example an
e-mail's customer charter sent to us on a Friday will start on the
following Monday providing this isn't a bank holiday.

For further information on our Customer Charter please see

[1]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/abo...

But my e-mail refers to an Environmental Incident, won't it get answered
sooner?

If you wish to report an incident i.e. pollution, fish in distress,
dumping of hazardous waste, etc please do not use this e-mail service
instead please call our free-phone 24 hour Incident Hotline on 0800 80 70
60. For more details about incident reporting please see:

[2]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/con...

Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally
privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify
the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else.

We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should
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We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to
under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for
litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any
Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the
sender or recipient, for business purposes.

If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our
terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506.
Find out more about the Environment Agency at
[3]www.environment-agency.gov.uk

References

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Dear Mr Speers,

Thank you for your continued interest in the development of the Tox and
SGV reports for Cyanide and Polyaromatic hydrocarbons. The project
executive for the CLEA work is Alison Gowers.

You expressed concern over the delay to publication of some of the SGV
reports and asked us why the delay,as you were expecting reports in
December 2007. In March 2006 we released a bulletin (see attached),
which we also published on our web site, explaining that the Department
for Environment, food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment
Agency did not intend to publish further Toxicological or Soil Guideline
Value Reports until the work of the Defra Soil Guideline Value Task
Force (SGVTF) was further advanced and the way forward was clear. In
November 2006, Defra issued a discussion paper entitled Soil Guideline
Values: The Way Forward. This paper sought views from key organisations
and groups on various ideas for how non-statutory technical guidance
might be amended to make it more useful to assessors carrying out risk
assessments, and to make clearer when land qualifies as contaminated
land under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 in England
and Wales. This exercise culminated in the publication in June 2008 by
Defra of 'Improvements to contaminated land guidance. Outcome of the
"Way Forward" exercise on Soil Guideline Values' and 'Guidance on the
legal definition of contaminated land'. Since publication of these
documents we have updated the CLEA framework reports and software, to be
in line with the new approach (published for comment in August 2008 and
as final in January 2009). In November 2008 we published a report
providing a summary of recommended values for physical-chemical
properties for sixty-six organic chemicals 'Compilation of data for
priority organic pollutants for derivation of Soil Guideline Values',
including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. We have published, at the
end of March 2009, 6 updated and new TOX and SGV reports, following this
new approach. We are now working on further TOX and SGV reports.

As we have previously stated both the cyanide and Polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbon reports are undergoing development. This development work
involves identification, collation and review of existing toxicological
research and modelling, followed by in depth discussions with other
regulatory bodies such as the Health Protection Agency and the Food
Standards Agency. The aim of the process is to attain consensus over
applicable Health Criteria Values and to subsequently produce SGVs which
are suitable for the purposes of risk screening. We aim to be in a
position to publish the relevant reports by the end of June 09, as per
our response to the parliamentary question you refer to. However as with
all projects of this nature, it is not possible to prejudge the outcome
of multi-agency consultations and hence we cannot give a definitive date
on which these reports will be available
because we do not have one.Please be assured that these TOX and SGV
reports are a priority for the Agency and we are doing everything we can
to ensure that they are produced as soon as possible."

I trust this will be satisfactory, if you any further questions please
don't hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards

Phil Barker
Customer Service Advisor
National Customer Contact Centre
Environment Agency
08708506506

show quoted sections

Thank you for contacting the Environment Agency. Please see below
regarding our response times and environmental incident reporting

You can expect to receive a reply from us within 10 working days for any
general enquiry. Please note that bank holiday days and weekends are not
classed as a working day.

If your enquiry refers to a Simple Exemptions application you can expect
to receive a response within 25 working days.

The Customer Charter (response days) for all enquiries start from the next
working day of you receiving this auto reply from us. For example an
e-mail's customer charter sent to us on a Friday will start on the
following Monday providing this isn't a bank holiday.

For further information on our Customer Charter please see

[1]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/abo...

But my e-mail refers to an Environmental Incident, won't it get answered
sooner?

If you wish to report an incident i.e. pollution, fish in distress,
dumping of hazardous waste, etc please do not use this e-mail service
instead please call our free-phone 24 hour Incident Hotline on 0800 80 70
60. For more details about incident reporting please see:

[2]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/con...

Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally
privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify
the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else.

We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should
still check any attachment before opening it.

We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to
under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for
litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any
Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the
sender or recipient, for business purposes.

If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our
terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506.
Find out more about the Environment Agency at
[3]www.environment-agency.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/abo...
file:///tmp/BLOCKED::http:/www.environment-agency.gov.uk/aboutus/customercharter/
2. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/con...
3. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/