Anglian Water pays £154,428 after sewage discharged into Bedfordshire River

The incident happened in 2018 after contractors working for the water company used a tanker jetter to unblock a sewer after sewage gathered in a field in Yielden, Bedfordshire.

This increase in flow caused the small rural Yielden Water Recycling Centre to become overwhelmed resulting in sewage discharging into the river.

The impact to the River Til was limited to 660 metres but ammonia levels were high. Dissolved oxygen was also depressed at a level likely to impact fish but there was no evidence of any dead fish or invertebrates.

Anglian Water reported the pollution to the Environment Agency and took action to clean it up. Other measures were taken to prevent a similar incident happening in the future.

Although Anglian Water had a nine bullet point environmental procedure document to deal with such incidents. There was no adequate written procedure setting out how to assess specific environmental risks and how to overcome them to prevent pollution from small sites like Yielden.

On May 4 2023, the Environment Agency imposed a Variable Monetary Penalty (VMP) on Anglian Water Services Ltd of £150,000 and costs to the Environment Agency of £4,428.33. This was the first time a water company in England has paid a VMP in relation to a pollution incident.

Jeremy Hay, Senior Environment Officer at the Environment Agency, said:

Polluters should always be held to account, and, as much as our resources allow, we will always investigate significant pollution incidents and bring those responsible to justice.

We are pleased with the success of this type of civil sanction, which we hope will change behaviour. It’s vital that future civil sanctions are not only proportionate but also an effective deterrent to all who pollute our rivers and waters.

If members of the public are concerned about pollution, they should call our 24/7 incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60.

The Government has recently completed a consultation on strengthening the abilities of the Environment Agency to issue monetary penalties for environmental offences and to raise the cap for such penalties. This will involve increasing the overall cap for variable monetary penalties in the Environmental Civil Sanctions (England) Order 2010 from its current amount of £250,000. Also, introducing powers to issue variable monetary penalties for offences under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

The Environment Agency will run its own consultation to look in more detail at the details of the amended penalties.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

• A Variable Monetary Penalty (VMP) is a type of civil sanction that the Environment Agency may impose for certain environmental offences where it is not in the public interest to prosecute.
• The maximum VMP amount that can currently be imposed is £250,000.
• The Environment Agency uses a similar stepped approach to calculating the amount of a VMP to the Sentencing Council’s Definitive guideline for environmental offences, as set out in Annex 1 of our Enforcement and Sanctions Policy
• VMP payments are not retained by the regulator – they are currently paid into His Majesty’s Treasury Consolidated Fund but in future will be re-invested into the government’s Water Restoration Fund. This fund will deliver on-the-ground improvements to water quality and support local groups and community-led schemes which help to protect our waterways.
• A full list of VMPs can found here: Environment Agency’s use of civil sanctions – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• Event duration monitoring data was returned from 13,323 storm overflows during 2022 – with the duration and frequency of sewage spills now monitored at 91% of storm overflows across the country. This is up from 12,707 in 2021 (equating to 89% coverage).
• The government has instructed water companies to install monitors on all storm overflows by the end of this year.
• While the data shows a 19% reduction in the number of sewage spills – down from 372,533 in 2021 to 301,091 spills in 2022 – this is largely due to last year’s below average rainfall. The data also shows that in 2022:
• The average number of spills per storm overflow was 23, compared to 29 in 2021;
• 3% of storm overflows spilled more than 100 times, compared to 5% in 2021; and
• 18% of storm overflows did not spill at all, compared to 13% in 2021.
• Storm overflows are a safety valve designed to release excess storm water from the sewerage system into rivers or the sea during periods of rainfall and/or snowmelt to ensure they are not overwhelmed.
• Water companies should only do this under strictly permitted conditions. EDM devices provide essential information about storm overflow use, helping to hold water companies to account.
• The Environment Agency shares public concerns around storm overflows and is calling for urgent improvements in storm overflow maintenance, management and investment by water companies.
• All the data is published online. More info on Event Duration Monitoring can be found here
• Water companies have agreed to increase transparency around when and how storm overflows are used:
• make real-time data on sewage discharges available at bathing sites all year round.
• publish annual monitoring data on their websites so that progress in reducing their use can be tracked. The Environment Agency will compile this data into an annual report that is easily accessible to the public. This data is also being used at an operational level to prioritise the most frequent spills for further assessment by EA officers.
• The Environment Agency has taken tough action against those companies which are breaking the rules:
• Three prosecutions have already concluded in 2023 (Anglian Water fined £510,000 on 12 January 2023 and £2,650,000 on 27 April 2023, and South West Water fined £2,150,000 on 26 April 2023), and more prosecutions are progressing in court.
• In 2021 the Environment Agency concluded seven prosecutions against water and sewerage companies with fines of £90 million, two of £4 million, £2.3 million, £1.5 million, £150,000, and £540,000. In 2022 nine prosecutions were concluded with fines of £1,600,750, £300,000, £240,000, £233,000, £50,000, and £18,000, £350,000, £871,000 and £536,000.
• The Environment Agency has launched a major investigation into possible unauthorised spills at thousands of sewage treatment works.