Yorkshire Water fined £600K for sewage pollution

Yorkshire Water has been hit with a £600,000 fine after an ageing sewage pipe burst, polluting a fishing lake in Wakefield.

The company was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court after pleading guilty to one charge of causing a water discharge that was not authorised by an environmental permit.

Yorkshire Water was also ordered to pay investigation and prosecution costs of £24,000 to the Environment Agency (EA), which brought the case to court.

The court heard that in October 2013 a rising main sewage pipe from the company’s Shay Lane pumping station burst, and raw sewage flowed into a fishing lake in Walton Park, which flows into the Barnsley Canal.

There had been four bursts on the rising main in the previous two years and on each occasion Yorkshire Water had put the failure down to age deterioration of the pipe.

EA environment management team leader Mark West said: “Utility companies have a responsibility to properly manage their infrastructure and ensure that their operations do not put the environment at unnecessary risk.

“This pollution incident had a significant impact on the ecology of the lake and the canal and it could have been avoided had the company taken action to replace the pipe following earlier bursts.

“Aside from the devastating loss of fish, this incident has had an impact on the lake that will last for some time. The angling club has also lost a significant amount of income during the time that the lake has been out of use. They’ve only recently been able to start fishing there again.”

Yorkshire Water apologised for the incident and insisted the judgement “in no way” reflects the performance of the company as a whole.

A spokesperson said: “We work every day to manage our water environment across Yorkshire and we care a great deal when our assets don’t perform as we would expect. We began on site in Walton in November to invest around £1 million to replace the pipe which burst and caused this incident to try to avoid this happening again.”