Anglian Water has received its largest fine on record after negligently allowing millions of litres of untreated wastewater to be discharged into the North Sea.
Over the course of a month in 2018, the Environment Agency said, the company had spilt the equivalent of three Olympic swimming pools containing untreated sewage into coastal waters near Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. It happened after equipment at the Jaywick recycling centre had been decommissioned and grit had built up in a U-bend.
The spills were frequent but short and Anglian’s monitoring equipment had failed to detect them.
Water companies are allowed to discharge untreated water during storms, when the combined sewage system can become overwhelmed. The agency said, however, that Anglian had data to show that these spills had happened in dry conditions, which should have led the company to act.
At a hearing at Chelmsford magistrates’ court, Anglian Water admitted two counts of unauthorised releases and breaches of environmental permits. It has been ordered to pay £2.65 million.
Judge Timothy King said the fine reflected, in part, that “Anglian Water finds itself in court so frequently”, adding that there was “a clear pattern of the company not responding adequately”. He said it should not have taken a routine inspection by the Environment Agency to spot the problem.
The Times has launched the Clean It Up campaign to push the government and polluters to improve water quality in rivers, lakes and beaches. Jeremy Hay of the Environment Agency, which brought the prosecution against Anglian, said the fine “sends out the message that we will not hesitate to prosecute companies which endanger communities and disregard the environment and the law”.
Rebecca Pow, the water minister, said that from now on fines would go towards helping to clean up pollution. “This result follows on the heels of a £2.1 million fine handed to South West Water. In both cases, the fines will rightly be paid solely from the company’s operating profits and not passed on to customer bills,” she said.
Anglian Water said that the fine was disproportionate. “We apologise wholeheartedly for this incident. We’re very clear that one spill is one too many and we are constantly striving to improve our systems to predict, mitigate and, where possible, eliminate events like these from happening,” it said.
“On this occasion, the judge found there was no harmful impact on the environment, so we are disappointed and confused about the level of the fine and the way it was derived.
“There is no place for spills, but fines should be proportionate to the environmental impact. on this occasion, the judge agreed that there was none.”
Source: The Times
Recent Comments