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South West Water has been hit with a fine of almost £12,000 after sewage poured into a stream near Perranporth in Cornwall, one of the UK's most popular surfing and bathing beaches.
The £11,713 fine, imposed on South West Water the Environmental Agency, follows a profit announcement last week for the Pennon-owned utilities supplier up 7.5 per cent to £152.1m, balanced by a drop in profits at its sister waste management company Viridor from 36.6 per cent to £36.5m.
On 26 June, 2012, there were three spills from Station Road sewage pumping station at Perranporth when crude sewage was discharged into the Bolingey stream only a short distance from Perranporth beach. The site is owned and operated by South West Water.
Illegal discharges followed a pump failure at an adjoining sewage pumping station at Droskyn that receives sewage from the Perranporth area via the Station Road site before pumping it forward for treatment.
South West Water alerted the Agency of the spills and also arranged for mechanical works to take place at Droskyn and for the tankering away of effluent from Station Road following spills that had been occurring for up to three hours prior to those actions taking place, according to the Environment Agency.
Environment Agency spokesman Andrew Blewett, said: “South West Water had sufficient advance warning through their alarm system and knowledge of a similar previous incident to put the necessary measures in place to mitigate these discharges occurring.
“We are however pleased to note that South West Water has invested in new infrastructure at Droskyn pumping station which we hope will mean that future problems can be dealt with more quickly.”
This is the second prosecution of South West Water for spills from the same pumping station. The previous spill had happened on 27 June 2011.
In a separate incident late last week Thames Water was ordered to pay £30,000 after what was described as a “volcano” of sewage erupted into a river in Weybridge from its Walton Lane Sewage pumping station.
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