Thames Water pollution fine upheld

The water company had allowed untreated sewage to enter the 58-hectare Chase Brook reserve in Newbury, Berkshire for five days in 2012.

Despite repeated alarms in Thames Water’s control centre showing a total pump failure at a sewage pumping station, the company only attended the National Trust-owned site after the pollution was brought to the attention of the Environment Agency and Thames Water by a member of the public.

A substantial increase in the level of fines…may therefore result in fines measured in millions of pounds

Court of Appeal statement

The water company was originally fined £250,000 and order to pay £6,887 in costs in September 2014, but chose to appeal the decision.

In rejecting Thames Water’s appeal yesterday, the Court of Appeal issued a statement warning that any future offences were likely to bring much heavier fines, as they would fall under new environmental sentencing guidelines introduced in July 2014.

“To bring the message home to the directors and shareholders of organisations which have offended negligently more than once before, a substantial increase in the level of fines, sufficient to have a material impact on the finances of the company as a whole, will ordinarily be appropriate,” said the statement.

“This may therefore result in fines measured in millions of pounds.”

Under the new environmental sentencing guidelines very large companies who risk causing serious environmental damage could now face very large fines.

Because the Court of Appeal agreed that Thames Water did not act swiftly enough to stop sewage damaging the nature reserve, it said it would have upheld a very substantially higher fine in this case.

Pumping failure

On 3 September 2012, untreated sewage was seen entering the Chase Brook following a non emergency discharge from the Broad Layings Sewage Pumping Station Emergency Overflow pipe (PSEO).

The discharge happened because the pumps at the pumping station had become blocked on 29 August 2012 and Thames Water had failed to act on their alarms system to attend and unblock them.

This failure led to the pumping station’s wet well becoming full and caused Thames Water to discharge the sewage through the emergency outfall, rather than be carried through the pumping station and sewage network to a treatment plant for proper processing. 

Since the incident in 2012, Thames Water has a made several changes at Broad Layings Sewage Pumping Station (SPS).

The company has sealed up the PSEO outfall to the Chase Brook and created a bunded area around the SPS into which the contents of the well will overflow, instead of the Chase Brook.

It has also replaced both of the pumps on site with a new type that can deal with blockages.

Bigger fines

This is the first judgement of the Court of Appeal to consider the new 2014 Sentencing Council Guideline for Environmental Offences and it confirms the intention that fines will be fixed taking into account the means of a particular company offender, not just to reduce the level of a fine in a particular case, but to increase it where the company is of greater means.

In discussing the new environmental sentencing guideline the Court noted that in the worst cases, which cause the highest category of harm and culpability, the objectives of punishment, deterrence and the removal of gain (for example the decision of management not to expend sufficient resources in modernisation and improvement) must be achieved by the level of penalty imposed.

According to the Environment Agency, this may well result in a fine of up to 100% of the company’s pre-tax net profit for the year in question, even if this results in fines in excess of £100 million.