Water firms are the biggest river polluters

Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Georgia Warren

BRITAIN’S water companies are this weekend revealed as the worst polluters of the country’s rivers and beaches - responsible for more than 300 offences in the past five years.
Despite a crackdown by the Environment Agency, water companies have killed thousands of fish and spoilt rivers with illegal discharges of sewage. Officials say fines are not big enough to be a deterrent.
The water companies have been identified as repeat offenders by the agency in its annual league table of the worst polluters. They account for more serious water pollution offences than any other sector.
Of the water companies, the most prolific polluter has been South West Water, which has been guilty of 47 incidents of unlawful pollution. It has been prosecuted for illegal discharges of sewage into the Taw Torridge Estuary in Devon, the River Truro in Cornwall and the River Dart, which runs off Dartmoor. The company has been fined £171,500 over the past five years.

In one of the most serious incidents involving South West Water, families at Dawlish beach on the south coast were warned to get out of the water because of sewage overflowing from a pumping station in the summer of 2006. The company was fined £7,000.
It is claimed that on some stretches of water in the southwest there is almost a constant risk from sewage overflows. “The company’s record on pollution is awful,” said John Osmond, general manager of Falmouth marina in Cornwall. “We have dockmasters who have hepatitis jabs because of the health hazard from sewage. In 2008, we shouldn’t still have raw sewage going into the sea and rivers.”
In the late 1980s, The Sunday Times’s Water Rats campaign exposed the filthy and dangerous state of some of the country’s rivers. Water quality has since dramatically improved, but sewage overflows remain a hazard.
Many of the court fines are too low to have any financial impact on the companies. Since 2003 Thames Water has notched up more fines than any other water company - £489,000 for 31 offences. This figure is dwarfed by its profits - £590m last year - and exceeded even by the bonuses paid to its senior executives.
David Owens, the chief executive of Thames Water, picked up a bonus of £662,000 last year.
Last May, Thames Water was fined £20,000 after a 35-year-old sewage pipe burst, churning out sewage into a stream in a National Trust woodland site at Woolton Hill, Hampshire. Thousands of fish were killed.
The fine represented just 0.001% of Thames Water’s £1.49 billion turnover last year.
Ed Mitchell, head of environment protection, policy and regulation for the agency, said: “We don’t think fines for environmental offences are sufficient to do what they are intended to do - which is to change behaviour.”
Thames Water has, however, dramatically improved its record on pollution. “Last year we reported reduced pollution with only one conviction, and had the lowest level of fines in the industry,” said a spokesman.
Southern Water and United Utilities were responsible for 40 pollution offences each since 2003. Both companies said their environmental performance was improving.
The companies which accrued the most fines for water pollution in 2007 were Severn Trent Water, Yorkshire Water and United Utilties Water. In September last year, Severn Trent was fined £34,000 for polluting the River Teme in Worcestershire, one of the country’s finest salmon rivers.
South West Water said its pollution record had significantly improved since 2003 and had not caused any “category 1” incidents - the most serious classification - for more than five years. The company said its large infrastructure meant cases of pollution were a higher risk.
“We face particular challenges because the southwest has a very sensitive environment, including a third of the England and Welsh coastline.”