Item7Appendix2HRA20190209DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 Appendix 2 11/10/2019

AGENDA ITEM 7

APPENDIX 2

2019/0209/DET

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAIS­AL PRO­FORMA: DIS­TIL­LERY AT GRANT­OWN ON SPEY APPRAIS­AL IN RELA­TION TO REG­U­LA­TION 48 OF THE CON­SER­VA­TION (NAT­UR­AL HAB­IT­ATS, &C.) REG­U­LA­TIONS 1994 AS AMENDED¹ (HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL)

Case­work Man­age­ment Sys­tem Ref. 2019/0209/DET

NATURA SITE DETAILS

Name of Natura site(s) poten­tially affected: River Spey SAC

Name of com­pon­ent SSSI if relevant:

1. River Spey SSSI
2. River Spey-Insh Marshes SSSI

Natura qual­i­fy­ing interest(s) & wheth­er pri­or­ity/non-pri­or­ity: European non-pri­or­ity species:

• Mar­gar­i­ti­fera mar­gar­i­ti­fera (Fresh­wa­ter pearl mussel)
• Pet­romyzon marinus (Sea lamprey)
• Salmo salar (Atlantic salmon)
• Lut­ra lut­ra (Otter)

Con­ser­va­tion object­ives for qual­i­fy­ing interests: To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies or sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, thus ensur­ing that the integ­rity of the site is main­tained and the site makes an appro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tion to achiev­ing favour­able con­ser­va­tion status for the qual­i­fy­ing features.

To ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long term:

• Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies (includ­ing range of genet­ic types for Salmo salar only) as a viable com­pon­ent of the site
• Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in site
• Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the species
• Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the species
• No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the species
• Dis­tri­bu­tion and viab­il­ity of the spe­cies’ host spe­cies for Mar­gar­i­ti­fera margaritifera
• Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies’ host spe­cies for Mar­gar­i­ti­fera margaritifera

¹ Or, where rel­ev­ant, under reg­u­la­tion 61 of The Con­ser­va­tion of Hab­it­ats and Spe­cies Reg­u­la­tions 2010 as amended, or reg­u­la­tion 25 of The Off­shore Mar­ine Con­ser­va­tion (Nat­ur­al Hab­it­ats, &c.) Reg­u­la­tions 2007 as amended.

1

STAGE 1: WHAT IS THE PLAN OR PROJECT?

Pro­pos­al title: Erec­tion of a dis­til­lery, vis­it­or centre, ware­house, car park­ing, road junc­tion and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture and land­scap­ing at Land 350m SE of Lower Giach, Dul­nain Bridge. 2019/0209/DET

Name of con­sul­tee: CNPA Name of com­pet­ent author­ity: CNPA

Details of pro­pos­al (inc. loc­a­tion, tim­ing, meth­ods): The fol­low­ing details are taken for the EIA for this pro­pos­al. Only those sec­tions which relate to the River Spey SAC are lis­ted below.

The Glen­beg Burn is part of the River Spey SAC at this loc­a­tion. The River Spey itself is both SAC and SSSI.

The Pro­posed Devel­op­ment con­sists of a dis­til­lery and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture and land­scap­ing at Crag­gan, Grant­own-on-Spey. The Pro­posed Devel­op­ment will com­prise the following:

• Build­ing with­in which will be loc­ated: dis­til­lery for spir­it pro­duc­tion; tank farm; vis­it­or centre, café and shop; and asso­ci­ated offices and wel­fare facilities.
• A ware­house for cask storage.
• Boil­er house and LPG tank.
• Pump house and abstrac­tion for two bore holes.
• Pipe and intake from the Glen­beg Burn to the distillery.
• Pipe and intake/​discharge from the River Spey to the distillery.
• Intern­al site roads and car parking.
• New road access junc­tion with the A95.
• Land­scap­ing and eco­lo­gic­al enhance­ment of grounds.
• Sus­tain­able Drain­age Sys­tem (SuDS).

Sec­tion	Text
2.5.6	The Pro­posed Devel­op­ment infra­struc­ture was moved so that the final loc­a­tion of the build­ings, roads and park­ing are all loc­ated above 200 mAOD out­with the flood plain. Mod­el­ling of the dis­charges has been under­taken to ensure that the dis­charges do not sig­ni­fic­antly adversely impact the River Spey.
2.5.7	The loc­a­tion of the pipes enter­ing the River Spey (for cool­ing water abstrac­tion, and cool­ing and treated foul water dis­charge) was revised to ensure that impacts to fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel were avoided (refer to Con­fid­en­tial Appendix 10.8 for fur­ther details).
2.5.13	Cre­ation of new inform­al foot­paths with­in the Site, provid­ing enhanced recre­ation­al oppor­tun­ity for vis­it­ors to exper­i­ence the River Spey. The new foot­paths would provide a con­nec­tion to Crag­gan Out­doors, any future link to the Strath­spey Rail­way, and would link with the exist­ing fisherman’s path on the banks of the River Spey to cre­ate a ped­es­tri­an con­nec­tion with Grantown-on-Spey.
3.3.25	A drain­age strategy has been developed to provide adequate drain­age for all areas of infra­struc­ture. The drain­age strategy ensures that there are sep­ar­ate sys­tems for foul and sur­face water. Sus­tain­able Drain­age Sys­tems (SuDS) will be used to treat and atten­u­ate the flows of sur­face water pri­or to dis­charge to the River Spey. The Applic­ant will imple­ment an appro­pri­ate SuDS main­ten­ance pro­gramme which will be developed in line with industry good prac­tice and will include:
* Mon­it­or­ing and inspec­tion procedures;
* Imple­ment­a­tion of mon­it­or­ing and inspec­tion pro­ced­ures, gen­er­ally every six

2

• months (max­im­um), to mon­it­or ongo­ing main­ten­ance regimes and to alter the regimes to suit loc­al con­di­tions, as required.
• Main­ten­ance regimes for swales and deten­tion basins, and fil­ter strips;
• Reg­u­lar grass cut­ting régime, includ­ing monthly dur­ing the grow­ing season;
• Reg­u­lar remov­al of dead plants, tree fall and waste products (gen­er­ally monthly); and
• Sed­i­ment remov­al every six months and after storms.
• Main­ten­ance of per­meable pave­ments; Brushing/​vacuuming once a year to pre­vent clog­ging; and remedi­al works, as required. | 3.3.26 | Based on the determ­ined level of foul water from the site facil­it­ies it will not be feas­ible to dis­charge the foul efflu­ent via a land drain­age sys­tem due to the area of soakaway required. It is there­fore pro­posed to treat the efflu­ent using a pack­age treat­ment plant of appro­pri­ate capa­city and then dis­charge the treated efflu­ent through a par­tial soakaway into the River Spey. | | 3.3.27 | The only dis­til­lery pro­cess efflu­ent to be treated by the foul treat­ment plant will be spent lees which will be treated at the dis­til­lery pri­or to con­nec­tion with the foul drain­age sys­tem. | | 3.3.28 | The Applic­ant will sub­mit Con­trolled Activ­it­ies Reg­u­la­tions (CAR) licence applic­a­tions for both the dis­charge of the sur­face water and the dis­charge of the foul water to Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA). | | 3.3.45 | Co-products from the dis­tilling pro­cess will include:
• Draff, which is the spent grain left in the mash tun after the liquid (wort) has been drawn off;
• Pot Ale, which is the liquor left in the wash still after the first dis­til­la­tion in the pot still pro­cess, i.e. it is the residue of the wash after extrac­tion by dis­til­la­tion of the low wines;
• Spent Lees, which is the waste residue left in the spir­it still after the dis­til­la­tion of the fore­shots, pot­able spir­its and feints (the three frac­tions received from the spir­it still pro­cess); and
• Wash­ing Waters. | | 3.3.46 | The draff co-products will be stored in an out­side draff silo pri­or to remov­al. It is anti­cip­ated that an arrange­ment will be made where this is sold to a loc­al farm­er who will col­lect it every couple of days. Altern­at­ively, the draff will be sold to aer­obic diges­tion plants or anim­al feed pro­du­cers, which would be depend­ent on volume and haulage costs. | | 3.3.47 | Sim­il­arly, the pot-ale co-product will be stored on-site in extern­al tanks pri­or to remov­al. It is anti­cip­ated that an arrange­ment will be made where a per­cent­age of this will be sold to a loc­al farm­er to spread on land, and the remainder sold for the pro­duc­tion of anim­al feed. | | 3.3.48 | In each case the co-products will be pumped from extern­al silo to a mobile tanker using a sealed coup­ling pump­ing sys­tem to min­im­ise the poten­tial for release of odour emis­sions. Pump­ing will be under­taken with­in a defined bun­ded area and appro­pri­ate pro­cess con­trols imple­men­ted to man­age any spillage dur­ing the trans­fer pro­cess. | | 3.3.49 | Spent lees will be treated on site to <0.5mg/L cop­per con­tent and neut­ral pH before being dis­charged to the River Spey in the foul water dis­charge. The con­cen­trated sludge ele­ment will be removed off site for dis­pos­al. | | 3.3.50 | Wash­ing waters will be col­lec­ted in an extern­al stor­age tank and removed off­s­ite by tanker for fur­ther treat­ment and dis­pos­al. The hand­ling and trans­fer of spent lees and wash­ing waters will be sim­il­arly con­trolled by oper­a­tion­al pro­ced­ures to ensure the man­age­ment of odor­ous releases and spillages. | | 3.4.14 | A con­struc­tion site drain­age plan will be developed as part of the CEMP. The prin­cip­al aims of the meas­ures con­tained with­in the CEMP will be to ensure that there is no site run-off into the River Spey and that appro­pri­ate pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol mech­an­isms are adop­ted. | | 3.4.15 | The con­tract­or will devel­op and imple­ment a site CEMP for con­struc­tion fol­low­ing good prac­tice. This will be in addi­tion to any more gen­er­ic envir­on­ment­al man­age­ment sys­tems (EMS). The CEMP will set out pro­ced­ures to ensure all activ­it­ies with poten­tial to affect the envir­on­ment are appro­pri­ately man­aged. The CEMP will incor­por­ate any sub­mis­sions such as meth­od state­ments or work pro­ced­ures relat­ing to mit­ig­a­tion as agreed with THC, CNPA |

3

and oth­er stat­utory con­sul­tees as part of the plan­ning con­di­tions attached to the con­sent. All envir­on­ment­al risks and neces­sary pro­tec­tion meas­ures (includ­ing mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures set out in this EIA Report) will be required to be iden­ti­fied and integ­rated in the contractor’s meth­od state­ments for all major con­struc­tion activ­it­ies. The CEMP will be included as part of the over­all site man­age­ment and oper­a­tion­al pro­ced­ures. | 3.4.16 | The CEMP will include a suite of plans in addi­tion to the main doc­u­ment which will be agreed with THC, CNPA and oth­er stat­utory con­sul­tees pri­or to the com­mence­ment of the main con­struc­tion activ­it­ies. The CEMP doc­u­ments will com­ply with good industry prac­tice and include pre­vent­at­ive, mit­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and emer­gency pro­ced­ures to be adop­ted dur­ing the con­struc­tion and rein­state­ment phases. The suite of doc­u­ments is expec­ted to include the following:

• Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan;
• Waste Man­age­ment Plan;
• Eco­lo­gic­al Man­age­ment Plan;
• Land­scape Man­age­ment Plan;
• Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan;
• Site Com­pound and Wel­fare Plan;
• Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ments; and
• Post Con­struc­tion Rein­state­ment and Res­tor­a­tion Plan. | | 6.4.5 | Ground invest­ig­a­tions were under­taken in Janu­ary 2019 and included five rotary bore­holes and 10 tri­al trenches. Stand­ard pen­et­ra­tion test­ing was under­taken at all bore­holes and gas and ground­wa­ter mon­it­or­ing installed at four of the bore­holes. Infilt­ra­tion test­ing was under­taken at three of the bore­holes and post-site works mon­it­or­ing under­taken over three months (refer to appendix 6.1 for fur­ther details). | | 6.4.6 | Hydro­logy sur­veys, includ­ing cross-sec­tions of the River Spey, were under­taken in May 2019 (refer to Appendix 6.5). | | 6.4.7 | A fresh­wa­ter inver­teb­rate sur­vey which was under­taken in Octo­ber 2018. This sur­vey was under­taken to assess the baseline water qual­ity, as determ­ined by bio­lo­gic­al indices, and inver­teb­rate com­munit­ies of the River Spey and Glen­beg Burn water­courses (Appendix 10.9). | | 6.4.8 | A baseline fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel sur­vey was under­taken in July 2018 to inform poten­tial intake and out­flow pipe loc­a­tions. This is covered in fur­ther detail in Chapter 10, with the full report avail­able in Appendix 10.8. | | 6.4.9 | The assess­ment of effects con­siders impacts to hydro­logy and hydro­geo­logy recept­ors due to con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment. The assess­ment of geo­lo­gic­al effects has been scoped out and as such is not con­sidered fur­ther. | | 6.4.10 | The assess­ment of effects con­siders the following:
• man­age­ment of sur­face water run­off dur­ing con­struc­tion and operation;
• qual­ity of dis­charge to receiv­ing envir­on­ments, in par­tic­u­lar the River Spey and the risk of pollution;
• impacts of abstrac­tion from water­courses and boreholes;
• impacts of con­struc­tion on the ground­wa­ter flow régime; and
• impacts to private water sup­plies. | | 6.7.2 | The Prin­cip­al Con­tract­or (PC) will imple­ment the fol­low­ing best prac­tice to min­im­ise the risk of pol­lu­tion events and increased sur­face run-off:
• The PC will author and imple­ment a Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan (CEMP) which will detail the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures to be imple­men­ted to pro­tect water­courses and ground­wa­ter dur­ing con­struc­tion and to decrease flood risk. An Envir­on­ment­al Clerk of Works (ECOW) will mon­it­or and ensure the imple­ment­a­tion of the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures out­lined in the CEMP. CNPA will review and author­ise the CEMP in con­sulta­tion with SEPA and SNH.
• The CEMP will con­tain a con­tact list for emer­gency ser­vices, the rel­ev­ant envir­on­ment­al reg­u­lat­ors, the loc­al water sup­ply and sew­er­age under­takers, the Health and Safety Exec­ut­ive and spe­cial­ist clean up con­tract­ors, if required.
• Dur­ing the induc­tion of con­tract­ors a spe­cif­ic ses­sion on good prac­tice to con­trol water pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies will be included. The respons­ib­il­ity for protecting |

4

| 6.7.3 | the water envir­on­ment will be shared with all staff on the Site with an appro­pri­ate level of sup­port from con­struc­tion man­agers to achieve this.

• The PC will pro­duce a Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment which will detail how sur­face water arising dur­ing con­struc­tion will be dealt with. This meth­od state­ment will take into con­sid­er­a­tion Site-spe­cif­ic ground con­di­tions and will be under­taken in con­sulta­tion with CNPA, SNH and SEPA.
• The PC will abide by the best prac­tice out­lined in the Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Guidelines (PPGs), the Guid­ance for Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion (GPPs) and CAR Regulations.
• The PC will imple­ment tem­por­ary SuDS dur­ing con­struc­tion to man­age sur­face run-off which may include cut-off ditches, set­tle­ment lagoons/​ponds, sac­ri­fi­cial ditches and silt fil­ter fences dur­ing con­struc­tion to man­age sur­face run-off.
• Run-off and dis­charge water from the excav­a­tion sites will be dis­charged into sumps where sed­i­ment would be allowed to settle, and the drain­age waters would be pumped out and dis­charged via veget­ated soakaways to a veget­ated area or infilt­ra­tion trench down gradi­ent of the excav­a­tion site. The exact meth­od of Site dis­charge will be con­firmed with the SEPA pri­or to the com­mence­ment of con­struc­tion. These meas­ures are also designed to reduce soil erosion by con­trolling dis­charges from the excavations.
• The tem­por­ary con­struc­tion SuDS will be fully inspec­ted reg­u­larly, in par­tic­u­lar after peri­ods of heavy rain­fall. Main­ten­ance will be under­taken in peri­ods of dry weath­er where practicable.
• Any dewa­ter­ing activ­it­ies will be man­aged through dewa­ter­ing per­mits and meth­od state­ments and the ECoW must be con­sul­ted and agree pump­ing and asso­ci­ated mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures pri­or to com­mence­ment of works.
• Any tem­por­ary access tracks con­struc­ted at the ini­tial pre­par­a­tion phase of con­struc­tion will be pre­ven­ted from dis­char­ging loose mater­i­al to the loc­al water envir­on­ment and will have appro­pri­ate drainage.
• The PC will under­take on-going mon­it­or­ing of sur­face water run-off to ensure that no sed­i­ments enter the River Spey or the Glen­beg burn dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase.
• All work with­in the River Spey and the Glen­beg Burn will be over­seen and mon­itored by the ECOW.
• The tim­ing of works with the River Spey and Glen­beg Burn will be care­fully con­sidered to avoid sal­mon spawn­ing and when the rivers are in spate.

The PC will ensure appro­pri­ate con­struc­tion com­pound design, which will include fuel, oil and chem­ic­al stor­age situ­ated on an imper­vi­ous base with an imper­meable bund, waste to be stored in a des­ig­nated area and removed at appro­pri­ate inter­vals and min­im­isa­tion of hard­stand­ing where possible.

• Where pos­sible top­soil strip­ping will not be per­formed dur­ing wet weath­er and all top­soil will be appro­pri­ately stored away from water­courses avoid­ing over-compaction.
• Inter­cept­or drip trays will be posi­tioned under any sta­tion­ary mobile plant to pre­vent oil con­tam­in­a­tion of the ground sur­face or water.
• Care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to the loc­a­tion of top­soil and sub­soil stor­age areas, ensur­ing the they are loc­ated on flat areas away from the water­courses, or that cut-off drains are placed between the water­courses and the stor­age areas.
• Spill kits, absorb­ent mater­i­als and full train­ing on their appro­pri­ate use will be avail­able on site to lim­it the poten­tial impact of any acci­dent­al spillages.
• Vehicles will be reg­u­larly checked for leak­ages and, with the excep­tion of emer­gency repairs, all main­ten­ance to be under­taken offsite.
• A spe­cif­ic code of prac­tice will be authored and fol­lowed for the lay­ing of con­crete found­a­tions. All con­crete will be batched off-site.
• Con­nec­tion to the Scot­tish Water clean water main will be under­taken by appro­pri­ately licenced and trained con­tract­ors appoin­ted by Scot­tish Water.
• The ECOW will under­take mon­it­or­ing of the River Spey and Glen­beg Burn through­out con­struc­tion in accord­ance to a mon­it­or­ing plan agreed with SEPA as part of the plan­ning pro­cess. | | 6.7.4 | cool­ing water to the River Spey. The volume of abstrac­tion and the tem­per­at­ure of the dis­charged water will be mon­itored in-line with the licence require­ments. A foul water treat­ment plant will be con­struc­ted on Site to the appro­pri­ate size for the max­im­um num­ber of vis­it­ors to the Site. The exact spe­cific­a­tion of the foul water treat­ment plant will be com­pleted as part of detailed design and may be mod­u­lar in nature to be able to grow as the vis­it­or num­bers increase and allow an effi­cient treat­ment pro­cess to occur with the highest pos­sible water qual­ity out­put. Mon­it­or­ing of the out­fall and water qual­ity enter­ing the River Spey will be under­taken through­out the growth peri­od, and life­time, of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment. | | 6.7.5 | The spent lees from the spir­it stills will be treated on Site to <0.5mg/L cop­per con­tent and neut­ral pH before dis­charge to the foul water treat­ment works. Any remain­ing con­cen­trated sludge will be removed off site for dis­pos­al. | | 6.7.6 | The Applic­ant will sub­mit a CAR licence applic­a­tion for the dis­charge of the treated foul water to the River Spey. Mon­it­or­ing of the foul water dis­charge will be under­taken in-line with the licence require­ments. | | 6.7.7 | Through oper­a­tion the fol­low­ing meas­ures will be imple­men­ted to min­im­ise pol­lu­tion risk:
• all on Site stor­age facil­it­ies will be con­tained with­in areas with an imper­meable sur­face and away from any watercourses;
• access tracks and car park­ing will be reg­u­larly checked and kept clear of debris and sur­face water;
• the con­struc­tion and main­ten­ance of SuDS on Site as out­lined in Appendix 6.6; and
• a bund with­in the ware­house to con­tain any flam­mable liquid. | | 6.7.8 | The Applic­ant will sub­mit a CAR licence applic­a­tion for the dis­charge of the sur­face water to the River Spey. | | 6.7.9 | The Applic­ant will sub­mit a CAR licence applic­a­tion for the abstrac­tion of the pro­cessing water from the Glen­beg Burn. The water level and flow of the Glen­beg Burn will be closely mon­itored in-line with the licence require­ments and abstrac­tion hal­ted when the flow rate falls beneath a level to be agreed with SEPA. | | 6.7.10 | The Applic­ant will sub­mit a CAR licence applic­a­tion for the abstrac­tion of the pro­cessing water from the aquifer. Mon­it­or­ing of the ground­wa­ter levels with­in the aquifer will be under­taken in-line with the licence require­ments. | | 6.7.11 | The pond will be main­tained as part of the land­scape main­ten­ance of the Site through­out oper­a­tion. This will include repla­cing the water as required and ensur­ing the health of the veget­a­tion. | | 6.7.12 | The Applic­ant will apply to Scot­tish Water to per­mit con­nec­tion to the Scot­tish Water clean water main. The Applic­ant will be required to under­take a Water Impact Assess­ment to ensure that the clean water main has the capa­city to provide to the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment. These assess­ments will be reviewed by Scot­tish Water who will only grant approv­al for the con­nec­tion sub­ject to the net­works hav­ing suf­fi­cient capa­city. | | 10.6.10 | There will be no sub­stan­tial land-take with­in the River Spey SSSI and SAC. The only land­take with­in the River Spey will be in the form of a bur­ied water pipe (out to a max­im­um of 7m from the bank). The loc­a­tion of this pipe (refer to Chapter 3 Pro­posed Devel­op­ment Appendix 6.5 Thermal Dis­charge Assess­ment) will, accord­ing to the Applic­ant, be placed away from hab­it­ats known to sup­port pearl mus­sels, Atlantic sal­mon and sea lamprey (based on the 2018 sur­vey res­ults repor­ted here), i.e. it will avoid all known import­ant hab­it­ats for these spe­cies (which have been iden­ti­fied in Appendix 10.8 and 10.10). As a con­sequence, no sig­ni­fic­ant dir­ect hab­it­at loss (land-take) is pre­dicted to occur with­in the River Spey SSSI and SAC. How­ever, a tiny amount of dis­turb­ance to the bed of the River Spey will occur at the water pipe loc­a­tion and so pre­dicted land-take effects from the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment on des­ig­nated sites is assessed as neg­li­gible. Assum­ing this pipe loc­a­tion avoids import­ant fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel, fish and otter hab­it­ats, land-take hab­it­at losses are con­sidered likely to be not sig­ni­fic­ant. | | 10.6.11 | The River Spey pipe will be used to extract and return river water to help cool whisky pro­duc­tion. Accord­ing to JBA Con­sult­ing, the abstrac­ted water will be of the same qual­ity and quant­ity when it is returned as it was when removed. How­ever, it will be returned at a dif­fer­ent (high­er) tem­per­at­ure. JBA Con­sult­ing has mod­elled the poten­tial impacts under a |

5

num­ber of dif­fer­ent scen­ari­os (e.g. Pro­ject Novus Thermal Dis­charge Assess­ment, JBA Con­sult­ing, 2019). | 10.6.12 | The ini­tial JBA Con­sult­ing thermal dis­charge mod­el assumed mix­ing with river water would be instant­an­eous. How­ever, as there was a pos­sib­il­ity that the mix­ing zone could come into con­tact with down­stream heat sens­it­ive, eco­lo­gic­ally import­ant spe­cies (spe­cific­ally Atlantic sal­mon and fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel) con­sid­er­a­tion to the loc­a­tion of the pipe and water tem­per­at­ure around down­stream eco­lo­gic­al sens­it­iv­it­ies was con­sidered by JBA Con­sult­ing. | | 10.6.13 | No efflu­ent dis­charge is planned to take place on Site (refer to Chapter 6 Hydro­logy and Hydro­geo­logy, and Appendix 6.6 Drain­age Strategy) (it will be removed from the Site and dis­posed of else­where), con­sequently water qual­ity in the River Spey is not pre­dicted to change as a con­sequence of efflu­ent dis­charge and so no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on water qual­ity are pre­dicted. | | 10.6.14 | Tak­ing into account stand­ard guid­ance and best prac­tice pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures (refer to Chapter 6 Hydro­logy and Hydro­geo­logy) it is con­sidered very unlikely that a ser­i­ous pol­lu­tion incid­ent would occur dur­ing con­struc­tion and/​or oper­a­tion. How­ever, were a cata­stroph­ic pol­lu­tion event to occur (very unlikely), it could poten­tially impact dir­ectly on the River Spey SSSI and SAC. In such an instance, the likely mag­nitude of impact to the receiv­ing envir­on­ment, giv­en dilu­tion with­in such a large river as the Spey, would prob­ably be minor-mod­er­ate (depend­ing upon the nature and scale of the pol­lu­tion event itself) and loc­al­ised. Giv­en that best prac­tice pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures will be used, the prob­ab­il­ity of a pol­lu­tion event occur­ring would be very unlikely. There­fore, the over­all poten­tial pollution/​runoff effects on des­ig­nated sites (River Spey SSSI and SAC) would likely be minor and no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects are pre­dicted. How­ever, if a large quant­ity of a tox­ic sub­stance were to pol­lute the River Spey, then the poten­tial pollution/​runoff effects on des­ig­nated sites (River Spey SSSI and SAC) may be great­er and so would be assessed as mod­er­ate. How­ever, this is con­sidered highly unlikely to hap­pen and so no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects are pre­dicted. | | 10.6.15 | The water abstrac­tion from the Glen­beg Burn for whisky pro­duc­tion has been mod­elled (refer to Appendix 6.7 Glen­beg Burn Abstrac­tion Study) and is assessed as not likely to have sig­ni­fic­ant effects on water quant­ity with­in the River Spey SSSI and SAC. | | 10.6.16 | Table 10.11 con­siders the con­ser­va­tion object­ives for the River Spey SSSI and SAC and the poten­tial impacts of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment | | 10.6.17 | The Pro­posed Devel­op­ment is con­sidered unlikely to under­mine the con­ser­va­tion object­ives for the des­ig­nated sites (Table 10.11) or have likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on the con­ser­va­tion status of qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies and hab­it­ats for which the site is des­ig­nated. There­fore, no likely sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects for des­ig­nated sites are pre­dicted. | | 10.6.18 | Any poten­tial impacts on the River Spey SSSI and SAC spe­cies are con­sidered fur­ther in this doc­u­ment with­in the spe­cif­ic spe­cies accounts. | | 10.6.25 | The con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment has the poten­tial to adversely affect otter dir­ectly or indir­ectly in a num­ber of ways:

• phys­ic­al dam­age or loss of holts, feed­ing and rest­ing sites;
• damage/​destruction of routes poten­tially used by otters while cross­ing the Study Area (sev­er­ance);
• dam­age to water­courses by run­off, pol­lu­tion or block­ing of watercourses;
• dis­turb­ance caused by noise of con­struc­tion or oper­a­tion of Pro­posed Devel­op­ment; and
• dir­ect injury or mor­tal­ity. | | 10.6.26 | There was only lim­ited sign of otters recor­ded with­in the Study Area dur­ing 2018 surveys |

6

(Appendix 10.4). Otter signs were found through­out the Glen­beg Burn and whilst no otter signs were found along the River Spey ripari­an edge dur­ing tar­geted sur­veys, they are reg­u­larly recor­ded and seen with­in this area (Peter Cos­grove pers. obs.). The otter sur­vey recor­ded one act­ive couch/lie-up site, 130m upstream from Glen­beg Burn con­flu­ence with River Spey at NJ 02556 26039 (out­side the Devel­op­ment Foot­print). The otter sur­vey failed to find any oth­er rest­ing sites, nat­al holts or import­ant for­aging areas area with­in the Site. Con­sequently, the mag­nitude of impact arising from the loss of hab­it­at (land-take) from the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment on otters is assessed as neg­li­gible. There­fore, no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects for land-take are pre­dicted. | 10.6.27 | The Pro­posed Devel­op­ment does not cross any water­courses (although dis­charge pipes are pro­posed out for 7m into the River Spey SAC and an abstrac­tion pipe into the Glen­beg Burn). A bur­ied pipe does not have the poten­tial to dis­rupt otter move­ments along the River Spey or Glen­beg Burn ripari­an hab­it­at (oth­er than very tem­por­ar­ily on the day(s) it is bur­ied) and so the mag­nitude of impact on otter hab­it­at as a con­sequence of sev­er­ance is assessed as neg­li­gible. There­fore, no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects for sev­er­ance are pre­dicted. Nev­er­the­less, it is pos­sible that otters may want to occa­sion­ally cross the Site dur­ing con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion. To avoid block­ing poten­tial for­aging routes (not­ing that there is no evid­ence for this being likely) it is recom­men­ded, as part of the design/​embedded mit­ig­a­tion, that per­meable (mam­mal friendly) bound­ary fea­tures are cre­ated dur­ing con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion and are made a plan­ning con­di­tion. | | 10.6.28 | In the unlikely event that a ser­i­ous pol­lu­tion incid­ent occurs, lead­ing to a sud­den pulse of pol­lut­ant, and if that was not read­ily con­tained, it might enter the aquat­ic envir­on­ment and could affect otters dir­ectly in the River Spey SAC, e.g. by coat­ing fur with oil or indir­ectly through dam­age to their prey spe­cies. How­ever, tak­ing into account the inten­ded imple­ment­a­tion of best prac­tice pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures (refer to Chapter 6 Hydro­logy and Hydro­geo­logy), it is con­sidered highly unlikely that a ser­i­ous pol­lu­tion incid­ent would occur dur­ing con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion. There­fore, in the unlikely event that a pol­lu­tion incid­ent did occur, it is very doubt­ful that pol­lu­tion would sig­ni­fic­antly affect otter for­aging (as numer­ous oth­er unaf­fected water­courses would be avail­able). The mag­nitude of poten­tial impact occa­sioned by a pol­lu­tion event for otter is assessed as low and no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects are pre­dicted. | | 10.6.29 | Since the con­struc­tion work would be spread over a 15 – 18 month peri­od, and be con­cen­trated with­in two agri­cul­tur­al fields, with no evid­ence of use by otters (but which are mobile and have large ter­rit­or­ies and can appear in unex­pec­ted places), the mag­nitude of impact to otters as a con­sequence of poten­tial dis­turb­ance from con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment is assessed as neg­li­gible. Con­sequently, no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects for dis­turb­ance are pre­dicted. | | 10.6.30 | Vehicu­lar traffic on the Site would increase (from pre-con­struc­tion baselines of occa­sion­al farm vehicles in the fields) dur­ing con­struc­tion and would mean that indi­vidu­al otters would have a slightly increased pos­sib­il­ity (albeit still very small) of being injured or killed by con­struc­tion vehicles. How­ever, the exist­ing inbuilt design meas­ures (embed­ded mit­ig­a­tion) means that an ECOW will ensure that pipes etc. are stored cor­rectly (redu­cing like­li­hood of otters using them and being present in poten­tially ​‘high risk’ areas) and low vehicle speed lim­its would greatly reduce the like­li­hood of injury or death from hap­pen­ing dur­ing con­struc­tion. Sim­il­arly, low vehicle speed lim­its dur­ing oper­a­tion would greatly reduce the like­li­hood of any oper­a­tion­al mor­tal­ity. Con­sequently, the mag­nitude of impact of dir­ect mor­tal­ity from con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment is assessed as neg­li­gible. There­fore, no likely sig­ni­fic­ant mor­tal­ity effects are pre­dicted. | | 10.6.31 | In order to pre­vent (non-sig­ni­fic­ant) adverse impacts on otter (which is leg­ally pro­tec­ted and a cita­tion fea­ture of the River Spey SAC), it is recom­men­ded that an Otter Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan is developed and imple­men­ted for all stages of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment con­struc­tion. This is recom­men­ded as a plan­ning con­di­tion. | | 10.6.32 | In sum­mary, assum­ing embed­ded mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are imple­men­ted, no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects are pre­dicted for otters in rela­tion to the con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment. How­ever, otters can be highly sea­son­al and irreg­u­lar in terms of their use of an area. Con­sequently, although there is no evid­ence that would sug­gest the Site |

7

is import­ant for otters, that does not pre­clude their occa­sion­al use of the Site and there­fore pre-con­struc­tion sur­veys would be con­duc­ted imme­di­ately around the Site. This pre- con­struc­tion otter sur­vey is recom­men­ded as a plan­ning con­di­tion (per­haps as part of the Otter Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan). | 10.6.37 | The con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment has the poten­tial to adversely affect fish dir­ectly or indir­ectly in four main ways:

• phys­ic­al dam­age to spawning/​nursery habitats;
• dir­ect mor­tal­ity to sal­mon in the River Spey SAC by run­off and pol­lu­tion dur­ing con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion (dis­charges water quality);
• reduc­tion in water flows in the River Spey SAC dur­ing con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion (abstrac­tion redu­cing water quant­ity); and
• loc­al­ised increase in water tem­per­at­ure from water dis­charges. | | 10.6.38 | There will be no sub­stan­tial land-take with­in the River Spey near any import­ant fish hab­it­at. The only land-take with­in the River Spey will be in the form of a bur­ied water pipe (out to 7m from the west bank). The loc­a­tion of this pipe (refer to Appendix 6.5 Thermal Dis­charge Assess­ment) will, accord­ing to the Applic­ant, be placed away from hab­it­ats known to sup­port Atlantic sal­mon (based on the 2018 sur­vey res­ults repor­ted here), i.e. it will avoid all known import­ant hab­it­ats for this spe­cies (iden­ti­fied in Appendix 10.10). As a con­sequence, no sig­ni­fic­ant dir­ect hab­it­at loss (land-take) is pre­dicted to occur with­in the River Spey SSSI and SAC. How­ever, a tiny amount of dis­turb­ance to the bed of the River Spey will occur at the water pipe loc­a­tion. To fur­ther min­im­ise impacts, as part of the embed­ded mit­ig­a­tion, is recom­men­ded the work in this area is super­vised by the ECOW and with agree­ment of SNH. There­fore, pre­dicted land-take effects from the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment on fish is assessed as neg­li­gible. Assum­ing this pipe loc­a­tion avoids import­ant fish hab­it­ats, land-take hab­it­at losses are not likely to be sig­ni­fic­ant. | | 10.6.39 | The River Spey pipe will be used to extract and return river water to help cool whisky pro­duc­tion. Accord­ing to JBA Con­sult­ing, the abstrac­ted water will be of the same qual­ity and quant­ity when it is returned as it was when removed. How­ever, it will be returned at a dif­fer­ent (high­er) tem­per­at­ure. JBA Con­sult­ing has mod­elled the poten­tial impacts under a num­ber of dif­fer­ent scen­ari­os (e.g. Pro­ject Novus Thermal Dis­charge Assess­ment, JBA Con­sult­ing, 2019). | | 10.6.40 | The ini­tial JBA Con­sult­ing thermal dis­charge mod­el assumed mix­ing with river water would be instant­an­eous. How­ever, as there was a pos­sib­il­ity that the mix­ing zone could come into con­tact with down­stream heat sens­it­ive, eco­lo­gic­ally import­ant spe­cies e.g. Atlantic sal­mon (which begin to struggle in water tem­per­at­ures of 200C), this was con­sidered fur­ther. | | 10.6.41 | Con­sequently, addi­tion­al hydraul­ic mod­el­ling was under­taken to estim­ate the extent of the thermal mix­ing zone to avoid any det­ri­ment­al effect on Atlantic sal­mon down­stream of the discharge/​mixing point. The JBA Con­sult­ing mod­el­ling shows thermal dis­charge effects would be min­im­al and unlikely to affect fish and so the thermal dis­charge effects are assessed as neg­li­gible with no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on Atlantic sal­mon. This assess­ment is based upon the pre­lim­in­ary and addi­tion­al thermal mod­el­ling work which demon­strates the dis­charge point and thermal mix­ing zone being suf­fi­ciently far away from this import­ant recept­or. Con­versely sea lamprey are not con­sidered to be par­tic­u­larly adversely affected by raised water tem­per­at­ures (e.g. Swink, 1998). Indeed, recent research sug­gests sea lamprey increase in their size with increased tem­per­at­ure (Cline et al., 2014.) and so the assess­ment of thermal impacts is neg­li­gible with no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on sea lamprey. | | 10.6.42 | No efflu­ent dis­charge is planned to take place on Site (refer to Chapter 6 Hydro­logy and Hydro­geo­logy and Appendix 6.6 Drain­age Strategy) (it will be removed from the Site and dis­posed of else­where), con­sequently water qual­ity in the River Spey is not pre­dicted likely to change as a con­sequence of efflu­ent dis­charge. The effects of changes to water qual­ity are assessed as negligible/​none so no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on water qual­ity are pre­dicted for fish. | | 10.6.43 | Tak­ing into account stand­ard guid­ance and best prac­tice pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures (refer to Chapter 6 Hydro­logy and Hydro­geo­logy) it is con­sidered unlikely that a ser­i­ous pol­lu­tion incid­ent would occur dur­ing con­struc­tion and/​or oper­a­tion. How­ever, were a cata­stroph­ic pol­lu­tion event to occur (very unlikely) it could poten­tially impact dir­ectly on |

8

Atlantic sal­mon with­in the River Spey. In such an instance, the likely mag­nitude of impact to the receiv­ing envir­on­ment, giv­en dilu­tion with­in such a large river as the Spey, would prob­ably be minor-mod­er­ate (depend­ing upon the nature and scale of the pol­lu­tion event itself) and loc­al­ised. Giv­en that best prac­tice pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures will be used, the prob­ab­il­ity of a pol­lu­tion event occur­ring would be very unlikely. There­fore, the over­all poten­tial pollution/​runoff effects on Atlantic sal­mon would likely be minor and no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects are pre­dicted. If a large quant­ity of a tox­ic sub­stance were to pol­lute the River Spey, then the poten­tial pollution/​runoff effects on import­ant down­stream fish hab­it­ats may be great­er and so would be assessed as mod­er­ate and likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect are pre­dicted if this were to occur. How­ever, this is con­sidered highly unlikely to hap­pen and so no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects are pre­dicted. | 10.6.44 | The water abstrac­tion from the Glen­beg Burn for whisky pro­duc­tion has been mod­elled (refer to Appendix 6.7 Glen­beg Burn Abstrac­tion Study) and is assessed as neg­li­gible and not likely to have sig­ni­fic­ant effects on fish. 10.6.45 In sum­mary, if the above meas­ures are imple­men­ted then no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects are pre­dicted for fish in rela­tion to the con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment. | | 10.6.46 | The con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the Pro­posed Devel­op­ment has the poten­tial to adversely affect fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels dir­ectly or indir­ectly in five main ways:

• Phys­ic­al dam­age to fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel beds;
• Dam­age to fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels in the River Spey SAC by run­off and pol­lu­tion dur­ing con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion (dis­charges water quality);
• Reduc­tion in water flows in the River Spey SAC dur­ing con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion (abstrac­tion redu­cing water quantity);
• Loc­al­ised increase in water tem­per­at­ure from water dis­charges; and
• Indir­ect adverse effects on host sal­monid pop­u­la­tions (sal­mon and trout). | | 10.6.47 | There will be no sub­stan­tial land-take with­in the River Spey near any import­ant fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel hab­it­at. | | 10.6.48 | The River Spey pipe will be used to extract and return river water to help cool whisky pro­duc­tion. Accord­ing to JBA Con­sult­ing, the abstrac­ted water will be of the same qual­ity and quant­ity when it is returned as it was when removed. How­ever, it will be returned at a dif­fer­ent (high­er) tem­per­at­ure. JBA Con­sult­ing has mod­elled the poten­tial impacts under a num­ber of dif­fer­ent scen­ari­os (e.g. Pro­ject Novus Thermal Dis­charge Assess­ment, JBA Con­sult­ing, 2019). Appendix 10.12 reviews cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels and tem­per­at­ure. | | 10.6.49 | The ini­tial JBA Con­sult­ing thermal dis­charge mod­el assumed mix­ing with river water would be instantaneous. |

9

| 10.6.50 | No efflu­ent dis­charge is planned to take place on Site (refer to Chapter 6 and Appendix 6.5) (it will be removed from the Site and dis­posed of else­where), con­sequently water qual­ity in the River Spey is not pre­dicted likely to change as a con­sequence of efflu­ent dis­charge. The effects of changes to water qual­ity are assessed as negligible/​none neg­li­gible so no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on water qual­ity are pre­dicted for fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels. | | 10.6.51 | Tak­ing into account stand­ard guid­ance and best prac­tice pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures (refer to Chapter 6) it is con­sidered unlikely that a ser­i­ous pol­lu­tion incid­ent would occur dur­ing con­struc­tion and/​or oper­a­tion. | | 10.6.52 | The water abstrac­tion from the Glen­beg Burn for whisky pro­duc­tion has been mod­elled (refer to Appendix 6.7) and is assessed as not likely to have sig­ni­fic­ant effects on water quant­ity with­in the River Spey SSSI and SAC. Thus, this is con­sidered unlikely to have adverse sig­ni­fic­ant effects on fresh­wa­ter pearl mussels