South West Water hit with sewage fine
4 Nov 2015
South West Water was fined £214,000 by Plymouth Crown Court last week after sewage leaked into the River Tamar.
The fine, one of the highest the company has received, resulted from a breach of environmental controls in 2013 at its Camels Head sewage treatment works in Plymouth.
The treatment plant discharges into the Tamar Estuary near the Devonport Naval Dockyard.
South West Water failed to operate the site in a way that minimised the risk to the environment. As a result, the site breached its permit on a number of occasions and risked serious pollution of the River Tamar
Mike Ingman, Environment Agency
The court heard that South West Water had failed to operate and maintain the works “in accordance with good operational practice and to treat effluent so as to minimise the risk of pollution,” the Environment Agency said.
The Judge presiding over the case said that South West Water had been “tiptoeing through a minefield of operational problems at this site and a pollution event beyond failure of minimum discharge standards was not only a risk but likely”.
The Judge concluded there had seemed to be a ”lack of urgency in addressing the assorted problems”.
South West Water admitted breaching the permit conditions.
”Compliance at South West Water sewage works is generally good,” said Mike Ingman, a spokesman from the Environment Agency. ”But in this case South West Water failed to operate the site in a way that minimised the risk to the environment. As a result, the site breached its permit on a number of occasions and risked serious pollution of the River Tamar.”
South West Water had now set about extensive improvements on the site, which were due to be completed next summer, he said.
This is the latest in a string of penalties awarded to water companies by the Environment Agency for the release of sewage into sensitive areas, often as a result of equipment failure.
Severn Trent Water was fined £480,000 in September after a series of failures caused raw sewage to leak into a farmer’s field and a pond in a private fishery last year.
The Environment Agency said the offences were aggravated by the fact that there had been previous warnings issued for two earlier incidents.
Southern Water was also handed a £160,000 fine in September after a pump failure caused the release of raw sewage into the sea in 2012, resulting in the closure of ten miles of beach at East Worthing for several days.
The presiding Judge said there had been “negligent failure” from Southern Water by not putting a sensor in place that might have prevented the incident.
“There was always a risk of failure at that critical point in the process,” he said.
Southern Water also received a £500,000 fine in November last year after a technical failure in its pumping station resulted in the death of local wildlife in a Kent watercourse.
The company said it had since invested heavily in improving its infrastructure.
