Yorkshire Water fined £600k for sewage leak
21 Jan 2016
Yorkshire Water Services has been fined £600,000 after a leaking sewage pipe burst in Wakefield, killing hundreds of fish.
The company was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Tuesday, and ordered to pay investigation and prosecution costs of £24,000 to the Environment Agency.
Leeds Crown Court heard that in October 2013 a rising main sewage pipe from a pumping station had burst, causing raw sewage to flow into Drain Beck, which fed a fishing lake in Walton Colliery Nature Park and flowed into the Barnsley Canal.
Over the following days the court heard that more than 860 dead fish were removed from the lake and the canal, with water samples confirming that the pollution was significant enough to be fatal to aquatic life.
The court also heard that there had been four bursts on this rising main in the previous two years, and on each occasion Yorkshire Water had put the failure down to age deterioration of the pipe.
Judge Kearl QC ruled on Tuesday that the company had been negligent and the incident had caused significant pollution.
“Utility companies have a responsibility to properly manage their infrastructure and ensure that their operations do not put the environment at unnecessary risk,” said Mark West, environment management team leader at the Environment Agency.
“This pollution incident had a significant impact on the ecology of the lake and the canal and it could have been avoided had the company taken action to replace the pipe following earlier bursts.”
The Environment Agency said the rising main had now been replaced, and in March 2015 the lake had sufficiently recovered for a restocking programme to begin, which is being paid for by Yorkshire Water.
