£1m fine for Wendover Arm pollution
THAMES WATER has been fined a massive £1m for allowing repeated discharges of pollutions into the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal.
The Environment Agency brought the action against Thames Water, which resulted in the highest ever fine for a water company in such a prosecution, David Davis tells us.
Nine months
The case was brought by the Agency after Thames Water repeatedly discharged polluting matter from Tring Sewage Treatment Works into the Wendover Arm from July 2012 for a period of nine months.
Thames Water pleaded guilty before Watford Magistrates Court to two charges under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010. On Monday (4th January) the company was ordered to pay a fine of £1 million, costs of £18,113.08 and a victim surcharge of £120 at St Albans Crown Court.
Poorly performing screens
Thames Water has a permit to discharge treated effluent from Tring Sewage Treatment Works into the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal, but it allowed poorly performing inlet screens that caused equipment at the works to block, leading to sewage debris and sewage sludge being discharged into the canal. The inlet screens should take out the majority of sewage debris, but had repeatedly failed in this case.
The Environment Agency received complaints from the Canal & River Trust and from the general public about pollution in the canal, with officers attending the site on several occasions, seeing sewage debris by the outfall. On one occasion officers worked with Thames Water, to arrange for aeration to be installed at the outfall into the canal, as a precautionary measure to increase the levels of oxygen in the water.
Bring about reforms
The QC, HHJ Bright, representing the Environment Agency stated:
"The time has now come for the courts to make clear that very large organisations such as Thames Water really must bring about the reforms and improvements for which they say they are striving because if they do not the sentences passed upon them for environmental offences will be sufficiently severe to have a significant impact on their finances."