The Act Part 2 – Drinking Water Quality Regulator Section 12 – Failure to comply with enforcement notices
38.This section makes provision for circumstances where a public water supplier fails to comply with the terms of an enforcement notice. Subsections (2) and (3) give the Regulator power to enter any premises and carry out the work necessary to achieve compliance and then to recover from the water supplier the cost of carrying out that work. Anyone who intentionally obstructs those seeking to achieve compliance is guilty of an offence (subsection (4)). If things required by the enforcement notice to be done by a certain date are not done in time, the water supplier is guilty of an offence (subsection (5)) and continued failures to comply could lead to the water supplier being guilty of further offences in this respect (subsection (7)). The penalty for the offences created under this section are, on summary conviction, a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum and on conviction on indictment, a fine.