Reservoir incident and safety: notify the Environment Agency of a potential concern
Source: gov.uk (2025-06-17)

Notify the Environment Agency if you see anything unusual or which may be a safety concern at a dam or reservoir

This guidance explains how members of the public can notify us if they see anything unusual or which may be of a potential concern at a:
- dam
- reservoir
If you see anything unusual at a dam or reservoir and are worried it may be a safety concern, you can report this anonymously to the Environment Agency. You should call our incident hotline (https://www.gov.uk/report-environmental-incident) on xx-xxxx-xxxx and explain this is a potential reservoir safety incident.

We will investigate, and if the incident is validated then we will make sure the owners are aware and managing the risk.

You may identify a safety concern if you are involved in or witness an incident at a reservoir. If you work on or near reservoir sites and see something that has or could affect the safety of the dam you can notify us. If you prefer, you will remain anonymous.

Things to look out for include:
- slips, slumps or sinkholes in a dam or reservoir embankment
- dirty water leaking from a dam or embankment
- breaches through a dam or embankment
- stones missing from a dam
- large, new cracks in a dam
- sudden and unexpected emptying of a reservoir
If you own or operate a reservoir and want to report an incident which has occurred, you should follow the report a reservoir incident (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-a-reservoir-incident) guidance.

What details need to be reported

It is helpful for us to have as much information as possible to determine:
- how to handle a safety concern
- in some cases, how it should be investigated
We will need to know:
- the location of the incident or how you became aware of a safety concern
- the nature of the safety concern or incident and who or what it affects
- a description of what you have seen, with photographs if possible
- whether there is any flooding occurring now
- whether the issue has already caused damage to the site or the environment, or if you think it could cause harm
What you can expect when you report a safety concern

We pass your report onto the relevant team, who will investigate based on the information you provide. We usually contact the operator of the site to find out if they are aware of and in control of the issue. We will not disclose the source of the information.

We always:
- make sure your concern is managed effectively, and we can help advise the operator or offer support if needed
- make sure any mandatory reporting procedures are followed so that we can learn lessons from the incident
- handle your report in confidence
- process any information relating to you in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and our privacy notice - you can find this at the end of the incident reporting forms
Where possible, we will provide appropriate feedback.

Whistleblowing

You can report serious environmental wrongdoing by your employer to us in confidence. This is called whistleblowing. (https://www.gov.uk/whistleblowing)

Your report must be in the public interest. It must show that environmental damage or a criminal offence:
- has happened
- is happening
- is likely to happen
You can come to us when you are unable to report wrongdoing to your employer. This may be because you have tried previously or are unhappy with the outcome.

To submit a whistleblowing report, follow our whistleblowing: reporting serious wrongdoing to the Environment Agency (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/whistleblowing-report-serious-wrongdoing-to-the-environment-agency) guidance.

Whistleblowing is different to reporting a potential incident or safety concern via our incident hotline. It should be used for serious cases of wrongdoing by your employer. Whistleblowing is not suitable to report emergencies.

You should use the incident hotline (https://www.gov.uk/report-environmental-incident) to report:
- emergencies
- environmental incidents that require an immediate or rapid response
- potential incidents at reservoirs
- physical defects at reservoirs which could cause a reservoir incident
- an event which has occurred that you think the Reservoir Safety Team should be aware of
Use the guidance on this page and the whistleblowing guidance (https://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/whistleblowers.htm) to decide which method is more appropriate.