Sewage: Waste Disposal
(asked on 3rd November 2021) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many fines have been issued to each water company for discharging raw sewage into bodies of water years in (a) 2018, (b) 2019, (c) 2020 and (d) 2021 to date.
Answered by
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency undertakes enforcement action in line with its enforcement and sanctions policy. Whilst the EA will always seek to prosecute for the most severe offences, it has a number of other enforcement options for lesser offences where offenders have shown lower levels of culpability, good cooperation and have responded positively to mitigate the pollution. For example, since 2018 the EA has used Enforcement Undertakings to secure over £8 million in payments from water companies to environmental charities to deliver environmental improvements.
In the period 2018 to 2021 there have been 11 successful prosecutions relating to pollution cases on the sewer network and storm overflows involving raw sewage. The number of prosecutions and value of fines for each year for each company are summarised in the table below:
Year | Number of prosecutions with illegal water discharge activity offences involving raw sewage | Water Company and Fine |
2018 | 2 | Northumbrian Water (fine £27,000) Thames Water (fine £1,800,000) |
2019 | 4 | Anglian Water (fine £146,000) Severn Trent Water (fine £500,000) South West Water (fine £44,000) Thames Water (fine £607,000) |
2020 | 21 | Anglian Water (fines £44,000 and £8,000) Severn Trent Water (fine £800,000) |
2021 (to end of October 2021 | 3 | Southern Water (fine £90,000,000) Thames Water (fine £4,000,000) Northumbrian Water (fine £540,000) |
1 One prosecution in 2020 includes 2 separate cases against Anglian Water Services Limited sentenced in court on the same day
During this period there were also prosecutions of water companies involving partially-treated and treated sewage which are not captured in the table.