Calls for tougher fines to stop water companies dumping sewage

‘If you think of the savings on treatment costs, you may conclude on a purely financial basis it was still cheaper to pollute the water’

‘We are in a position where firms can absorb the fines and many pollution incidents are not even investigated, let alone prosecuted’

THE courts are failing to reflect the cost of pollution in fines levelled on water companies, campaigners say.

England’s main nine water firms were cautioned or punished hundreds of times between 2010 and 2021, but analysis suggests the fines levied barely made a dent in their profits.

The nine companies were fined 0.7 per cent of their post-tax profits in Environment Agency cases over the past decade, with the average fine less than £200,000, according to data published by US transparency group Good Jobs First.

Earlier this year Southern Water was fined a record £90 million for deliberate sewage dumps between 2010 and 2015, but the figures show that this case is a significant outlier.

Sentencing the firm in that case, Judge Jeremy Johnson said it “had not learnt” from being fined £2.7million in three separate but similar cases since Aug 2013, and “its offending simply continued”.

Penelope Gane, head of practice at Fish Legal, said a “real deterrent” was “desperately needed”.

She added: “If you think of the savings that Southern Water must have made each year on their treatment costs, you may conclude on a purely financial basis it was still cheaper to pollute the water environment.”

Sentencing guidelines for environmental offences were updated in 2014 to allow for higher fines, and suggest penalties of up to £3million for the most serious, deliberate offences by large companies, although judges can go beyond this for the largest businesses with turnovers of £50 million.

In 2018 a £33,600 fine was handed to Northumbrian Water for three separate pollution incidents which covered a stream with a “thick sewage fungus” for 100 yards and killed freshwater shrimp and midge larvae.

In 2019 Anglian Water was ordered to pay £156,000 for polluting a brook with sewage because of negligence and a lack of maintenance at its plant.

Mark Lloyd, chief executive of the Rivers Trust, said: “We are in a position where businesses can absorb the financial impact of fines in their operating costs and many pollution incidents are not even investigated, let alone prosecuted. Since the Farming Rules for Water were introduced three years ago, there have been no prosecutions.”

Financial regulator Ofwat also has the power to discipline water companies for failing to treat sewage correctly. Fines levied for pollution can be courtimposed or come directly from the Environment Agency.

A government spokesman said: “Since 2015 the Environment Agency has brought 48 prosecutions against water companies, securing fines of over £136million. We are pleased to see that courts are imposing higher fines but we would like to see them grow higher.”

Southern Water said climate change was causing more intense rainstorms while development was reducing the amount of land that would allow water to soak away naturally, meaning more ended up directed into drains.

George Wakely, from Southern Water, said: “We are already investing £1.5billion to reduce pollution by 80 per cent by 2025 and we’ve created a task force so that by 2030 we can reduce storm overflows by a further 80 per cent.”