South West Water has been fined £2.15m for illegally dumping sewage into rivers and the sea in Devon and Cornwall, causing significant environmental harm.
Failures by the company between July 2016 and August 2020 led to harmful sewage discharges being dumped by treatment works at Lostwithiel, Kilmington, Crediton and Torpoint, as well as the Watergate Bay sewage pumping station.
An Environment Agency (EA) investigation revealed a number of common faults in the implementation of the management systems contributed to the illegal discharges. Alarms signalling spills at treatment works were not acted upon for several hours at two sites, the investigation found.
District Judge Matson, sitting at Plymouth magistrates court on Wednesday, sentenced the company on 13 charges – six for illegal water discharge activities and seven for contravening environmental permit conditions.
Matson said “incidents of pollution will no longer be tolerated by these courts” and fined South West Water £2.15m. The company, which had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing, was also ordered to pay costs of £280,000 and a £170 victim surcharge.
The EA said chemicals were discharged from the treatment works sites “on more than one occasion”, causing significant environmental damage to sites at Kilmington, on the River Axe, and Crediton, on the River Creedy.
Thousands of fish died in the Axe after the discharge, including some protected species, the agency said.
South West Water breached permit rules in Lostwithiel in July 2016 by pumping raw sewage into the River Fowey. Control room alarms showed there was something wrong with the works but the discharge continued for more than 12 hours.
Alarms also went off at at Watergate Bay treatment works in August 2016 but no action was taken and sewage was illegally discharged into the coastal waters for more than 35 hours. E coli levels were found to be 2,000 times higher than the level at which water quality would be classified as poor.
On two occasions, effluent from the Torpoint sewage treatment works was pumped into a site of special scientific interest at St John’s Lake and into part of a special area of conservation (SAC), both designated as such for their variety of bird life and invertebrates.
Clarissa Newell, of the EA, said failure to apply basic environmental management principles caused pollution incidents at some of the most scenic locations in Devon and Cornwall, including bathing waters and SACs.
“Having alarms to alert you that sewage is spilling is no good if no action is taken,” she said. “Enforcement is intended to prevent these things from happening again, and ensure South West Water improves and meets the expectations placed on it.
“Like all water companies, South West Water has a responsibility to operate in accordance with permit conditions and to prevent pollution. Polluters must pay and the Environment Agency will continue to do everything in its power to ensure that they do.”
Alan Lovell, the chair of the EA, said: “We welcome this sentence. Serious pollution is a serious crime – and we have been clear that the polluter must pay.
“The Environment 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.”
Susan Davy, CEO of Pennon Group, which owns South West Water, said: “Any pollution incident is one too many. These seven isolated incidents that took place between 2016 and 2020 were unacceptable and it’s right that we have been held to account by the EA. I also want to be clear that this didn’t happen because we don’t care; we do. Everyone who works for South West Water is extremely passionate about our environment and we need to do more to prove this to our customers and visitors to our region. We have a plan, it is working and we won’t stop until everyone can feel proud about the performance of their water company in the south-west.”
