Severn Trent hit with £800,000 fine for sewage releases into stream

Severn Trent Water has been fined £800,000 after pleading guilty to allowing 3.8Ml of raw sewage to enter a Shropshire stream from one of its sewage treatment works between November 2014 and May 2016.

As well as the sewage discharge the firm was charged with failing to provide a labelled sampling point and failing to operate and maintain a grass plot treatment facility.

In the case brought by the Environment Agency at Telford Magistrates court, Severn Trent was fined £400,000 on the first and third charge with no separate penalty on the second. It was ordered to pay costs of £70,420.28 and a victim surcharge of £120.

The offences were revealed in May 2016 after an Environment Agency officer found a brook polluted for 250m downstream from the treatment works. Untreated sewage effluent was found to have been incorrectly discharging via storm tanks during normal weather.

Severn Trent Water responded by pumping the contents of the storm tanks to sludge holding tanks, to be emptied and tinkered off site. It was then able to run the site in line with its permit.

The Environment Agency found that the discharges of raw sewage had run for 17 months, illegally releasing over 3.8Ml of raw sewage into the brook.

Following the court case an Environment Agency spokesman said the company “had been aware of the capacity issues at the works since 2011 yet had taken inadequate steps to address them.” He said had the company deployed the the measures it took following the discovery of the pollution Severn Trent “would have protected the environment and kept them out of court.”