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South West Water has been handed the region’s highest ever environmental fine for a series of pollution events spanning four years.
The company has been ordered to pay £2.1 million after pleading guilty to 13 charges between July 2016 and August 2020.
Charges relate to operational and asset failures at treatment and pumping sites which led to wastewater and chemicals entering rivers in Devon and Cornwall.
The Environment Agency (EA) said the company failed to apply “basic environment management principles” leading to pollution.
It prosecuted the company for six counts of illegal water discharge activities and for seven offences of contravening environmental permit conditions.
The incidents related to sewage treatment works in Lostwithiel, Kilmington, Crediton and Torpoint, and the Watergate Bay sewage pumping station. Damage was caused to the rivers Creedy and Axe, in which thousands of fish were killed.
The EA said failure to operate assets and respond to control room alarms resulted in sewage entering the River Fowey for more than 12 hours.
A 35-hour discharge was caused by the company inadequately responding to alarms at the Watergate Bay sewage pumping station, where E. coli levels were recorded as 2,000 times higher than what the EA would classify as poor.
“Having alarms to alert you that sewage is spilling is no good if no action is taken,” EA’s manager for Devon and Cornwall, Clarissa Newell, said. “Enforcement is intended to prevent these things from happening again and ensure South West Water improve and meet the expectations placed on it.”
“Any pollution incident is one too many,” Susan Davy, chief executive of South West’s parent company Pennon Group said.
She said it was right the company was held to account by the EA for the seven “unacceptable” historic incidents. “ I also want to be clear that this didn’t happen because we don’t care, we do.”
She added: “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.”
Alan Lovell, EA chair, welcomed the sentence and said: “Serious pollution is a serious crime – and we have been clear that the polluter must pay.”
Water minister Rebecca Pow iterated that pollution fines would be re-invested into a Water Restoration Fund announced last month to deliver improvements to waterways.
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