Wessex Water fined after fish killed at Clackers Brook

Wessex Water has been fined £500,000 after thousands of fish were killed following three sewage leaks, including two in Clackers Brook, in 2018.

The water company was found to be negligent over the sewage leaks and failed to report the incidents to the Environment Agency as early as it should have.

At Swindon Magistrates’ Court on Monday, 11th November, Wessex Water was fined after it pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two charges relating to the Bowerhill Lodge sewage pumping station and one relating to a burst sewer main at the Wick St Lawrence sewage treatment works near Weston-super-Mare in Somerset.

District Judge Joanna Dickens said that the company’s failure to report discharges at Bowerhill Lodge “undermines the regulatory regime,” though Wessex Water had since taken “considerable and expensive steps” to remedy the situation.

The two charges at Bowerhill Lodge were for causing storm water to discharge into Clackers Brook between late March and early April 2018 and discharging screened sewage in late July to early August 2018.

In a case brought by the Environment Agency, the court heard that more than 2,100 fish died in the Clackers Brook, a tributary of the River Avon, during the discharge at Bowerhill Lodge.

These included eels, lamprey, and bullheads, three species that are threatened and are also listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Almost all of the fish within a 1km reach had been killed. The discharge was caused by a mechanical failure and continued for 54.5 hours with sewage flowing through a nature conservation area.

The company did not report this to the Environment Agency immediately. The investigation found that failures of the sewage pumping station’s alarm and telemetry system, and a power cable becoming entangled in pump equipment, contributed to the failures. Further investigation found that there had been other discharges from Bowerhill Lodge Pumping Station earlier that year that Wessex Water had not reported to the Environment Agency.

The third charge was for causing untreated sewage effluent to discharge into marsh rhynes (a type of man-made drainage channel) from a rising main leading into the Wick St Lawrence works.

Following the case, Environment Agency senior environment officer, Janine Maclean, said, “These cases are further examples of a water company breaking the law and causing serious pollution. It was very sad that the pollutions had such serious impacts, killing fish and other aquatic life.

“Wessex Water’s rising mains are ageing and becoming vulnerable to bursting and are an area of increasing concern to the Environment Agency, presenting a risk to people and the environment. We recognise the company is increasing its monitoring of rising mains, which is a positive step forward, but monitoring is still reliant on failure, and we would like to see the company significantly increase the level of investment it makes to proactively replace rising mains before they fail.

“We expect all water companies to manage and maintain their sewage pumping stations and rising mains in a responsible and sustainable manner to ensure they do not cause pollution. We hope these cases send a clear signal to shareholders and water company boardrooms, up and down the country, that investing in resilient sewage systems to prevent pollution, and ensure compliance, must be an essential way of doing business.

“Our dedicated officers are increasing our regulatory inspections of Wessex Water’s sewage pumping stations, and we will also be attending more incidents, including those arising from rising mains, with the new resources we are gaining to transform the way we regulate the water industry.”

Pictured: Dead fish and evidence of high ammonia levels.