Welsh Water fined £90,000 for breaching permit

Welsh Water has been fined £90,000 for exceeding permitted levels of sewage effluent released into the River Wye from its Kingstone and Madley sewage treatment works.

The company pleaded guilty to an environmental permit breach prosecuted by the Environment Agency. It was ordered to pay costs of £14,085.05 and a £190 surcharge.

The court heard that the Environment Agency had been alerted to the issue following routine sampling results that showed Welsh Water to have exceeded permitted levels of effluent on three occasions between 6 August 2020 and 19 June 2021. The three offending readings were double, tenfold, and sixfold the permitted level which, under the permit, was not to exceed more than twice in a 12-month period.

The court was told that such levels indicated that the treatment works was performing “very poorly” and that it was “extremely unusual” to have this many breaches in a 12-month period. The Environment Agency concluded that this showed “either poor operational management, inadequate asset provision or a mixture of both.”

In mitigation, Welsh Water said that on the first two occasions, it could not identify a root cause for the permit breaches. On the third occasion, the company said the breach had occurred during a “significant storm.”

Senior environment officer at the Environment Agency, Adam Shipp, who led the investigation, said: "Incidents like this are preventable and are completely unacceptable."