The setting watchdog prosecuted simply 4 water firms for breaching an overflow allow between 2018 and 2022 regardless of lots of of hundreds of sewage spills over that interval, in keeping with official knowledge.
Southern Water, Severn Trent, Anglian Water and Yorkshire Water had been prosecuted by the Surroundings Company and fined a complete of simply over £94mn in seven instances. A single high-quality levied in opposition to Southern Water accounted for £90mn of that complete, in keeping with knowledge obtained by a Freedom of Data request submitted by the Monetary Instances.
The instances concerned breaches of “storm overflow” permits, which permit waste water to be launched from the sewerage system into rivers or the ocean underneath sure circumstances, to forestall it from being overwhelmed.
The dearth of prosecutions comes in opposition to a backdrop of rising public anger over the amount of sewage polluting the UK’s waterways and seas, which has prompted fierce criticism of water firms and regulators. Water firms paid out £1.4bn in dividends final yr, in keeping with FT analysis.
In 2022 alone, 10 water and sewerage firms working in England discharged sewage into rivers and the ocean on 301,091 occasions.
Marketing campaign teams say the EA is critically under-resourced and unable to carry firms to account for environmental offences.
“Environmental safety has been defunded” because of years of austerity measures, stated Charles Watson, founding father of River Motion UK, a charity and campaigning group, this week. “We’re dependent as the general public and enterprise on the regulators doing their job and so they’re not.”
Rebecca Pow, a junior setting minister, stated in March that the amount of sewage coming into the UK’s waters was “unacceptable”.
Though a lot of final yr’s greater than 300,000 sewage spills had been authorized, there have been 554 breaches of storm overflow permits in 2022, and greater than 1,600 since 2020, in keeping with authorities knowledge, which didn’t disclose what penalties had been imposed.
There have been additionally at the very least 15 cases in 2022 when two water firms — Southern Water and Wessex Water — discharged sewage into the setting with out a storm overflow allow, the data shows.
The EA stated this week that polluting rivers was “unacceptable” and that it was “holding the water business to account on a scale by no means seen earlier than”.
Breaching a storm overflow allow may end up in a spread of penalties, together with written warnings, prosecutions and “enforcement undertakings”, that are provides made by an offending firm to treatment the issue and make a donation to charity.
Between June and December 2022, the EA accepted just one enforcement undertaking from a water firm, Welsh Water, in relation to allow breaches on the firm’s sewage remedy works.
Welsh Water agreed to pay £50,000 to the ecology charity the Wye and Usk Basis. The corporate stated it strived to “function all of our property in full compliance with their permits”.
Along with the storm overflow guidelines, firms may be prosecuted for sewage spills underneath the “water discharge actions” rules. Between 2018 and 2022, three water firms had been prosecuted by the EA for breaching water discharge permits by spilling sewage, in keeping with authorities knowledge.
Ofwat, the water business regulator, has fined just one privatised utility for breaching rules designed to forestall sewage spills in England because the guidelines got here into drive virtually 30 years in the past.
The regulator is now investigating six water firms over issues that they could have breached sewage rules, whereas the EA is wanting into probably unlawful discharges at greater than 2,000 sewage works.
Southern Water stated it was “on the forefront of the business in monitoring and self-reporting to the Surroundings Company”. Purposes at websites with out permits “had been submitted and are pending”.
Yorkshire Water stated it operated “over 2,200 overflows throughout the area and while it’s uncommon, generally issues can go fallacious and we’re unable to function to the requirements set out within the allow. If it does, we do the whole lot we are able to to minimise the influence to the setting.”
Anglian Water and Severn Trent declined to remark.
