WELSH Water has been ordered to pay a £104,000 court bill for pouring sewage into the River Wye.

The Environment Agency prosecuted the utility for breaching the conditions of an environmental permit at a sewage treatment works between August 2020 and June 2021.

Welsh Water Ltd entered a guilty plea at Worcester Crown Court and were fined £90,000 for exceeding permitted levels of sewage effluent into the River Wye from the Kingstone and Madely Sewage Treatment Works in Herefordshire.

The company were also ordered to pay costs of £14,085.05.

The court was told that officers from the Environment Agency were alerted to an issue following routine sampling results in July 2021.

The environmental permit stated that during monthly sampling visits, Welsh Water must not discharge effluent containing more than 7 milligrams per litre of biochemical oxygen demand on more than two occasions in a 12-month period.

From August 6 2020 to June 19 2021, the sampling system showed that Welsh Water allowed levels to exceed the permitted levels on three occasions.

On August 8 2020, the levels were recorded at 13 milligrams per litre; on May 19 2021, levels were recorded at 74 milligrams per litre; and on June 19 2021 level were recorded at 41 milligrams per litre.

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.

A report concluded that this showed “either poor operational management, inadequate asset provision or a mixture of both”.

Welsh Water, in mitigation, said on the first two occasions, they 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”.

Adam Shipp, a senior environment officer at the Environment Agency who led the investigation, said:  “Incidents like this are preventable and are completely unacceptable. Water companies are aware that their activities have the potential for serious environmental impacts, and they know that we will take action when they cause pollution.”