Northumbrian Water fined £240,000 for raw sewage spills

Northumbrian Water has pleaded guilty to two offences of polluting water courses and been fined £240,000 and ordered to pay costs of more than £34,00 for polluting a watercourse.

In a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency, the court heard that on two consecutive days in March 2017, a brick blocked a combined sewer causing raw sewage to pour out of manhole chambers into Coundon Burn near Bishop Auckland. An Environment Agency assessments revealed that some 300m of the riverbed were covered in sewage material.

Northumbrian Water said that the brick blockage was from a damaged manhole chamber on farmland and said it had since taken steps to protect them. Enquiries revealed that the company had no maintenance system in place to periodically check them for damage. Instead, the company responded to reported pollution incidents.

Judge Robert Adams found the company negligent by having no preventative systems in place but gave them credit for the steps taken since the incident to remedy the issue.