South West Water fined £2.15m for dumping sewage in sea and rivers
South West Water has been fined £2.15m for illegally dumping sewage into rivers and the sea in Devon and Cornwall, causing significant environmental harm.
Failures by the company between July 2016 and August 2020 led to harmful sewage discharges being dumped by treatment works at Lostwithiel, Kilmington, Crediton and Torpoint, as well as the Watergate Bay sewage pumping station.
An Environment Agency (EA) investigation revealed a number of common faults in the implementation of the management systems contributed to the illegal discharges. Alarms signalling spills at treatment works were not acted upon for several hours at two sites, the investigation found.
District Judge Matson, sitting at Plymouth magistrates court on Wednesday, sentenced the company on 13 charges – six for illegal water discharge activities and seven for contravening environmental permit conditions.
Matson said “incidents of pollution will no longer be tolerated by these courts” and fined South West Water £2.15m. The company, which had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing, was also ordered to pay costs of £280,000 and a £170 victim surcharge.
The EA said chemicals were discharged from the treatment works sites “on more than one occasion”, causing significant environmental damage to sites at Kilmington, on the River Axe, and Crediton, on the River Creedy.
Thousands of fish died in the Axe after the discharge, including some protected species, the agency said.
South West Water breached permit rules in Lostwithiel in July 2016 by pumping raw sewage into the River Fowey. Control room alarms showed there was something wrong with the works but the discharge continued for more than 12 hours.
Alarms also went off at at Watergate Bay treatment works in August 2016 but
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