Yorkshire Water ordered to pay record £1.1m fine
4 May 2016
Yorkshire Water was fined £1.1million last week for a pump failure in 2013 that caused pollution to flow into the River Ouse near York.
The Environment Agency said it had prosecuted the company after its officers spotted a large volume of sewage effluent discharging into the Ouse, while surveying the river.
This is the largest fine to have been handed out following prosecution by the Environment Agency. In January, Thames Water was fined £1million after poorly performing inlet screens failed to prevent a discharge of sludge into the Grand Union Canal.
The Environment Agency said Yorkshire Water’s discharge was caused by a pump failure at its Naburn treatment works in Fulford.
Water companies have a legal duty to ensure that their operations do not pose a threat to the environment
Mike Riby, team leader at the Environment Agency
Three pumps are needed to cope with the volume of sewage. However, when one of the pumps failed, the backup was not operational, in breach of the firm’s environmental permit.
This caused sewage to flow into emergency storage tanks, and then overflow through an old outfall into the river, affecting water quality for up to a kilometre, the Environment Agency said.
The backup pump was then found to be out of operation again just over a year later, during a site inspection, added the Environment Agency.
Yorkshire Water admitted to three environmental offences relating to the operation of its Naburn treatment works, and last week Leeds Crown Court found that the water company had illegally discharged sewage into the river, and issued a fine of £1.1million. It also ordered the company to pay £27,073.69 in costs.
“Water companies have a legal duty to ensure that their operations do not pose a threat to the environment,” said Mike Riby, environment management team leader at the Environment Agency.
“In this case, Yorkshire Water failed to have in place appropriate pumping equipment needed to process sewage at its Naburn treatment works.”
Yorkshire Water said that since April 2015 it had been running a distribution centre that supplied spare pumps and parts to enable the replacement and repair of broken pumps.
