Water company fined £560k over sewage discharge
A Magistrates' Court has handed Anglian Water a £560,000 fine after a treatment plant let millions of litres of sewage into a river, killing invertebrates and fish across three kilometres.
An Environment Agency investigation found failures from the water company in planning, managing, and monitoring at the Doddinghurst Water Recycling Centre near Brentwood, Essex.
This led to more than 3.9 million litres of harmful sewage being discharged into a tributary of the River Wid unchecked, damaging the river's ecosystem as well as killing a number of protected species of fish.
The court heard that the incident, which occurred in September 2018, was the result of a fault in the aeration process.
Sewage was being discharged into the river for two days before the fault was spotted, resulting in the River Wid experiencing high levels of ammonia for six days after the failure.
The damage was compounded by the lack of an early alarm system which would usually alert staff of any issues, the prosecution said. This could have been avoided, the court heard, if software, costing £205, had been fitted to the system retrospectively when a fault occurred on the same part of the process earlier in the year.
The District Judge, Sam Goozee, described Anglian Water's record as "lamentable" and ordered the firm to pay a fine of £536,000, costs of £27,439.21 and a victim surcharge of £170.
Environment Agency Chief Executive Sir James Bevan welcomed the sentence noting that the agency will "pursue any water company that fails to uphold the law or protect nature, and will continue to press for the strongest possible penalties for those which do not".
Environment Agency Officer Gavin Senior said: "The public demand tough action when it comes to water quality and we are delivering. Anyone caught breaching environmental laws faces enforcement action, up to and including prosecution.
"We will always ensure the courts have all the information they need to impose appropriate sentences."
The prosecution is one of at least seven Environment Agency prosecutions against water and sewage companies to have concluded this year, with one case resulting in a fine of £1.6m.
Seven prosecutions were concluded last year, with fines of £90m, two of £4m, £2.3m, £1.5m, £150,000, and £540,000.
An Anglian Water spokesperson said: “We take our duty of care to the environment incredibly seriously and deeply regret any negative impact when things go wrong. We work tirelessly to protect and enhance the environment, and find it deeply distressing when incidents like this occur. Which is why, even though this incident caused no long term environmental harm, and the judge acknowledged our quick response to mitigate any further impact, we also donated £60,000 to the Essex and Suffolk Rivers Trust to help fund their projects and benefit the local environment. We know there’s no room for complacency, and we’re absolutely determined to improve further and progress towards achieving our zero pollutions goal.”
Adam Carey
