Yorkshire Water hands £300,000 to wildlife trust to compensate for sewage spill

Yorkshire Water has agreed to pay £300,000 to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust as an enforcement undertaking after a sewage discharge polluted Kippax Beck in Leeds in 2018.

The company breached its environmental permit due to an unauthorised sewage discharge from its Garforth Storm Tanks, which led to the pollution incident. Yorkshire Water submitted the enforcement undertaking to the Environment Agency (EA), which the regulator has now accepted .

Following an warning from EA of discoloured water in Kippax Beck, the company discovered that an automatic flow control valve at Garforth Storm Tanks had closed fully causing the tanks to fill and subsequently discharge into a nearby watercourse.

Neither the valve alarm nor storm tank sewage level alarms had sounded. The impact was reported to have affected the beck and its wildlife for 3.3km.

The water company’s payment to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust “will bring great benefits to nature reserves in the local area,” said the EA. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust said it will use the donation to fund a series of projects at nature reserves in the Lower Aire valley.

And Yorkshire Water has detailed its improvements at the Garforth facility including replacing and repairing equipment and completing an environmental survey.