One of the largest water companies in the UK has been prosecuted after it failed to prevent discharges into the sea of what was described as the “equivalent to three Olympic swimming pools of waste water in a month”.
Anglian Water supplies water and water recycling services to almost seven million people in the East of England and Hartlepool.
It was fined a record amount for environmental offences in the East of England region after untreated sewage entered the North Sea.
The water company pleaded guilty at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court and was fined £2.65 million following a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency.
It was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of over £16,000 and a victim surcharge of£170, resulting in a total financial penalty of £2,666,690.09.
The Environment Agency said a “catalogue of failures” by the company to manage and monitor effluent at the Jaywick Water Recycling Centre in Essex resulted in sewage being discharged into the sea.
Anglian Water had decommissioned a piece of equipment at the site which resulted in the untreated sewage flowing into the North Sea, the agency said.
The company “failed to act on available data that would have alerted it to the issue” and also had a lack of an alarm system to inform it on how often the discharges were occurring.
Water Minister Rebecca Pow said water companies must not profit from environmental damage and that this latest fine follows a £2.1 million fine handed to South West Water for pollution offences.
The minister said:
“In both cases, the fines will rightly be paid solely from the company’s operating profits and not passed on to customer bills.
“Going forward all fines will be paid into our Water Restoration Fund to support projects that will help improve our natural environment and our water quality.”
Alan Lovell, chair of the Environment Agency, said its officers had been “instrumental” in highlighting the scale of Anglian Water’s discharges into the North Sea, which he said were “equivalent to three Olympic swimming pools of waste water in a month”.
“The Environment Agency will pursue any water company that fails to uphold the law or protect nature and will continue to press for the strongest possible penalties,” he said.
