#88 🎙️|Public Inquiry Break – Before We Get to Water 11th Aug 2026 Part A|

The Public Inquiry may be on a break, but just before we left, a newly published European Commission guidance document was admitted into the Inquiry at the request of the applicant. And it is all about water, permitting and mining. With 11 days of evidence on water, water ecology and non-water ecology scheduled for later in the Inquiry, I thought it was worth understanding this document before we get there. In this episode: What the new European Commission guidance actually says  and what it doesn’t. What exactly are mixing zones? What is a water body ? Natural background levels, monitoring and baseline evidence. New provisions around short-term deterioration and relocating existing pollution. And two words we may want to remember when the water evidence begins: “sufficient certainty.” This isn't the easiest subject, but water is far too important to leave entirely to the experts...... 🎧 Listen, share it with someone living downstream  and come back for the next episode, when I’ll look at the river has to say . Read the European Commission guidance discussed in this podcast – C/2026/2836 (official EUR-Lex document). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52026XC02836&utm_source=chatgpt.com   If you find these updates useful, please consider joining the Sperrins community  campaign newsletter. https://dontmineus.com/newslatter/   SAVE OUR SPERRINS ( Social Media)  https://linktr.ee/saveoursperrins