GovWire

Sewage discharge equivalent of 2 Olympic sized swimming pools lasting 23 hours killed.

Anglian Water has been fined more than half a million pounds. They failed to stop raw sewage being discharged into a river for 23 hours, killing 5,000 fish.

Around 6 million litres of raw sewage, the equivalent of more than 2 Olympic swimming pools, was discharged into the River Great Ouse at Brackley, Northamptonshire. It killed thousands of fish and spread 12 kilometres down the River Great Ouse.

The discharge, from the emergency overflow at the pumping station, started just before 6pm on 24 May in 2017. It was not stopped until around 5pm the next day, 23 hours later.

Electrical faults caused the pumps to stop. Then a failure of the early warning alarm system, put in place to alert Anglian Water staff of an issue, meant the discharge went unnoticed.

The pollution was found to have stretched 12 kilometres down river. Fish including brown trout, chub and pike were killed, as well as smaller species such as bullhead, dace, stone loach, minnow, gudgeon and 79 brook lampreys. Dead signal crayfish were also observed.

Anglian Water pleaded guilty to a breach of permit. They were ordered to pay a fine of 510,000, costs of 50,000 and a victim surcharge of 170 at Peterborough Magistrates Court (12 January 2023).

Environment Manager at the Environment Agency, Andrew Raine, said:

The environmental impact of this pollution was substantial, resulting in a large scale fish kill and affecting 12 kilometres of the upper River Great Ouse.

Polluters should always be held to account, as much as our resources allow, we will always investigate significant pollution incidents and bring those responsible before the courts.

We are grateful that the level of fine acknowledges the damage to the river ecosystems that this sewage spill from Anglian Water has caused.

The court heard how an electrical failure caused the pumps to stop working and another electrical fault prevented the back-up system from working. This was further compounded by the failure of an alarm system which was meant to notify staff there was a discharge.

Brackley Terminal Pumping Station pumps sewage from within the town of Brackley to be treated at sewage works 1.3 kilometres to the east of the town.

A number of incidents were reported to the Environment Agency by members of the public and landowners, including numerous sightings of dead fish on the river.

A dog walker spotted 20 to 30 dying fish being carried by the river flow, gasping for breath belly up or tail up in the river.

She also reported a large trout following the riverbank, jumping out of the water and rubbing itself along the bank as it went downstream.

Investigating Environment Agency officers also reported finding the bed of a watercourse that flows into the river was completely covered in sewage debris. This included panty liners and tampons.

There was also fresh waste materials more than 4 inches up the banks, indicating levels had been higher recently despite no rain for the last few days.

Members of the public with concerns about pollution should contact our 24 hour incident hotline on: 0800 80 70 60.

Background

• Anglian Water pleaded guilty to the following charge: On or about 24 May 2017. Being the owner and operator of a regulated facility, namely Brackley Terminal Pumping station. Holder of an Environmental Permit (number AWCNF10460) (the Permit), did fail to comply with a condition of the Permit namely, Condition 8 in that you failed to act without undue delay in remedying the failure or breakdown at the site. Contrary to Regulation 38(2) of the Environmental Permitting (England & Wales) Regulations 2016.

• The Environment Agency has significantly driven up monitoring and transparency from water companies in recent years, so that everyone can see what is going on. This includes:

• Event Duration Monitoring: this measures how often and for how long storm overflows are used. The Environment Agency has increased the number of overflows monitored across the network from 800 in 2016 to more than 12,700 in 2021. This is the equivalent of almost 9 in10 storm overflows now with monitoring devices. All 15,000 overflows will have them by the end of 2023. All the data is published?online. More info on Event Duration Monitoring can be found here.
• Flow-to-full treatment: The Environment Agency has also asked companies to install new flow monitors on more than 2,000 wastewater treatment works. This is to identify what is happening at those works during the sewage treatment process itself. This has led to a major investigation, announced in November 2021, with the Environment Agency requesting more detailed data from all wastewater treatment works.
• Storm Overflows Taskforce: Through the work of the Storm Overflows Taskforce. The taskforce is made up of Defra, the Environment Agency, Ofwat, Consumer Council for Water, Blueprint for Water and Water UK.

Water companies have agreed to increase transparency around when and how storm overflows are used:

• make real-time data on sewage discharges available at bathing sites all year round.
• publish annual monitoring data on their websites so that progress in reducing their use can be tracked.

The Environment Agency will compile this data into an annual report that is easily accessible to the public. This data is also being used at an operational level to prioritise the most frequent spills for further assessment by Environment Agency officers.

The Environment Agency has taken tough action against those companies which are breaking the rules:

• In 2021 the Environment Agency concluded 7 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies with fines of 90 million, 2 of 4 million, 2.3 million, 1.5 million, 150,000, and 540,000.
• In 2022 9 prosecutions were concluded with fines of 1,600,750, 300,000, 240,000, 233,000, 50,000, 18,000, 350,000, 871,000 and 536,000.
• The Environment Agency has launched a?major investigation?into possible unauthorised spills at thousands of sewage treatment works.

We will always seek to hold those responsible for enviro

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