Southern Water fined £330,000 after sewage spill killed 2,000 fish

The water turned cloudy after a pumping station sent out the untreated effluent at Waltham Chase

A water company has been fined £330,000 after raw sewage spilled into a stream and killed about 2,000 fish.

Southern Water's pumping station sent out the untreated effluent at Waltham Chase in Hampshire in July 2019.

The Environment Agency (EA), which brought the prosecution, said wrongly programmed relay equipment was to blame.

Southern Water admitted breaching environmental permit regulations and said it was reviewing pumping stations.

The EA said the "illegal flow of contaminated matter continued over public land and the stream for between five and 20 hours".

Faulty equipment at Little Bull pumping station led to a pump failing, it found.

When a second one did not start, sewage and hazardous substances were diverted out of two manholes.

It spread into fields and into Shawford Lake Stream and towards outdoor activity venue YMCA Fairthorne Manor.

Shawford Lake Stream sewage spill in numbers

The EA said its investigators saw no live fish in parts of the stream

• Brown trout, bullhead, lamprey, and stickleback were among 1,954 dead fish

• Fish were affected 1.5 miles (2.4km) downstream

• YMCA Fairthorne Manor had to cancel 1,010 water sports bookings

• The stream closed for water sports for 10 days

• Ammonia levels were 25 times the legal limit

Source: Environment Agency

The EA said it was notified by a member of the public who saw untreated sewage, solids, and tissue entering the stream.

An agency officer also saw pools of dirty water and polluted matter and vegetation in local fields, and the "first of many dead fish as a result of the pollution".

"Investigators saw no live fish in parts of the stream, only dead ones," the EA said.

Dawn Theaker, environment manager in Hampshire for the EA, said the incident was a "direct result of negligence in how the pumping station was managed".

She said: "Yet again, we have a water company failing to properly respond to alarms when things go wrong at facilities they operate, allowing sewage to flow uncontrolled into fields and a stream."

'Unacceptable'

MP for Rural Affairs Robbie Moore said Southern Water had "rightly been punished" for "damage to our natural environment".

He said the fine would be paid into the government's Water Restoration Fund.

Company secretary Richard Manning apologised for the "unacceptable historical incident" following the sentencing at Southampton Magistrates' Court.

He said Southern Water took action to reduce the impact on the local area as soon as it was aware of the issue.

Mr Manning added that a comprehensive review into more than 3,000 unmanned pumping stations had been carried out, leading to a £13m improvement programme.

The company has since compensated the YMCA and set up a £140,000 grant scheme with the Groundwork South Trust.

In 2021 Southern Water was fined a record £90m for deliberately dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into the sea.

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