Yorkshire Water hands £0.4m to wildlife trust to offset damage to watercourses

Yorkshire Water has agreed to donate £400,000 to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust as enforcement undertakings following the company’s unauthorised sewage discharges into two watercourses.

The Environment Agency found that Yorkshire Water had breached its environmental permit with an unauthorised sewage discharge at its sewage pumping station at Bellhouse Way and and two other unauthorised discharges at its Hoyle Mill Lane site.

The company submitted two Enforcement Undertakings to the Environment Agency, which it accepted: one at £150,000 for the Holgate Beck incident and another at £250,000 for Hoyle Mill Stream.

The Bellhouse Way plant has a permit to discharge sewage into Holgate Beck in emergencies, which does not include storm conditions and heavy rain. In April 2018 it discharged sewage intermittently due to an electrical failure in the main pump and blockage of the standby pump.

An alarm was activated, but as this coincided with a period of heavy rain so it was not differentiated from other assets which are allowed to discharge during storm conditions.

Under the enforcement undertaking Yorkshire Water has improved its monitoring systems so that assets which are permitted to discharge in an emergency only are allocated a code to ensure they are always investigated. This code has been allocated to 670 assets across the county.

At Hoyle Mill Road Sewage Pumping Station a rising main burst in July 2020, discharging raw sewage into Hoyle Mill Stream, visibly polluting the beck for 2.75km. Weeks later the repaired rising main failed again discharged raw sewage into the beck. Investigation revealed that the repair was not sufficient to sustain the pressure. As part of the Enforcement Undertaking, Yorkshire Water replaced the whole rising main at the end of last year.

The Environment Agency said Yorkshire Water has made significant improvements to its monitoring system and completed repairs to its assets as part of the civil sanction.