Southern Water fined £90m over ‘shocking and wholesale disregard for environment’
The water company admitted 51 charges relating to discharges of untreated sewage in protected waters in the South
Southern Water has been fined £90m after pumping 16bn to 21bn litres of untreated sewage into delicate ecosystems, including Chichester Harbour.
The company was handed the fine for a ‘shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment’ at 16 of its treatment sites over a sixyear period from 2010.
Southern Water, which has 168 previous convictions and cautions, admitted 51 charges relating to discharges of untreated sewage.
The volume of the 6,971 separate discharges across the six years equated to 7,400 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Sentencing, Mr Justice Adam Johnson said the crimes were carried out ‘deliberately’ with an ‘intentional breach of or flagrant disregard of the law,’ or failure to put in systems to prevent them.
He said it was ‘inconceivable’ that senior board directors were unaware. They, he said, ‘deliberately failed’ to put in systems to stop the spills.
Southern Water would have been fined £99m for the charges with an extra £36m on top for the money it saved by not carrying out remedial work, the judge said.
But a £135m fine was reduced as it pleaded guilty at the first chance in March last year.
The judge added the fine could mean he was aware the company’s ‘continued viability’ may be reviewed but this was ‘an acceptable consequence of the seriousness of those failings’.
During the sentencing hearing last week, Canterbury Crown Court heard members of the Havant Sea Angling Club in the Solent saw condoms and sanitary towels on their mooring lines in early 2016, with a ‘strong smell of sewage’.
So bad was the pollution that the boats had to be jet washed and the ropes replaced.
“Dog walkers have been seen having to walk through the sewage,” the sentencing judge said. “There are reports of dogs being violently ill after swimming.”
There were 674 discharges lasting 4,938 hours in duration at Budds Farm Waste Water Treatment Works in Langstone Harbour.
Those discharges took place between January 2010 and December 2015.
Between April 2010 and December 2012 there were 49 discharges totalling 335 hours at Bosham, West Sussex, and 226 discharges totalling 9,890 hours at Chichester.
Sentencing, Mr Justice Adam Johnson said “Each of the 51 offences seen in isolation shows a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment, for the precious and delicate ecosytems along the North Kent and Solent coastlines, for human health, and for the fisheries and other legitimate businesses that depend on the vitality of the coastal waters.
“Each offence does not stand in isolation. It is necessary to sentence the company for the totality of the offences to which it has pleaded guilty. But even that does not reflect the defendant’s criminality. That is because the offences are aggravated by its previous persistent pollution of the environment over very many years.”
Across all 51 charges admitted by Southern Water there were 6,971 discharges lasting 2,571 days – or 7.04 years – in total.
The discharges were made into highly sensitive protected areas including numerous conservation sites, causing major environmental harm to shellfish waters, the court heard.
Mr Justice Johnson said scientists agreed oyster numbers in the Solent had reduced, in part due to water quality.
When the Environment Agency investigated, staff at the firm were under instruction not to speak with them ‘under any circumstances,’ the judge said.
Southern Water charges its customers for treating wastewater and is required by permit to properly treat wastewater so as to protect the environment.
Instead, the court heard Southern Water admitted to causing the illegal discharges over the offending period.
Richard Matthews QC, defending, said he could not guarantee there would never be another spill.
But he said: “I can give this guarantee: that the company is utterly committed to a top to bottom transformation in its transparency. That’s what the chair and the CEO have set out to achieve.”
The firm said its actions were due to negligence, and were not deliberate.
Mr Justice Johnson said the company’s cooperation with investigators was ‘grudging, partial, inadequate’.
But significant steps have been taken to improve, the judge said.
The case, which is the largest criminal investigation in the Environment Agency’s 25-year history, saw the largest fine for environmental pollution by a water company to date.
The fine will be paid out of company operating profits – protecting customers from having to pick up the tab for illegal pollution, the Government body said.
Southern Water had a £213m operating profit in 2019/20.
The offences are aggravated by its previous persistent pollution of the environment over very many years. MR JUSTICE ADAM JOHNSON