News
£865,000 Pollution Fine For Yorkshire Water
Utility company Yorkshire Water has been fined £865,000 after pleading guilty to a charge of polluting the Ingbirchworth Dike near Barnsley in 2017, with around one million litres of chlorinated water discharged per day for nearly a month.
Even low levels of chlorine is toxic to aquatic life and this incident led to more than 430 dead fish being found in just one day.
Serious pollution.
The Ingbirchworth water treatment works supplies drinking water to 90,000 people in Barnsley and South Yorkshire, with water passing from Ingbirthworth and Royd Moor reservoirs for treatment. The process included an underground clean water wash tank, which contains chlorine.
Under normal operating conditions, the level of this water tank fluctuates. When at 87 percent capacity, an inlet valve is meant to open automatically so that the tank can refill. When at 91 percent capacity, the valve should close. If the tank reaches 96 percent capacity, discharges can take place via an overflow pipe into the dike.
The treatment plant does have an environmental permit for these discharges to take place in emergency situations. However, before and during this particular incident, a capacity alarm had been set at 97 percent, which meant that the overflow pipe was discharging before alarm activation.
In November 2017, an alarm was raised that the tank inlet valve had failed. It was then opened manually so that the tank could fill and the water supply maintained. However, company failures meant that maintenance operatives were unaware that the capacity alarm had been set above the overflow pipe level, leading to regular discharges for 27 days.
Since the incident, Yorkshire Water has implemented a range of different improvements to the tank, with the alarm trigger amended so it’s activated before the overflow point is reached. The inlet valve has also been replaced.
Weekly proactive checks are also now in place and internal communication with operatives improved, while the tank discharge pipes have been moved so that discharges take place in onsite lagoons rather than the dike.
Jacqui Tootill, Yorkshire water industry regulation manager for the Environment Agency, said: “This pollution was not caused by an unforeseen event or extreme weather. The systems were simply not robust enough and this wouldn’t have happened if proper checks had taken place.
“We expect full compliance from water companies and are committed to taking robust enforcement action where we see serious breaches. We’re pleased Yorkshire Water has now been dealt with by the courts following our investigation.”
Systemic water company failure.
Pollution incidents of this kind are by no means uncommon and, in fact, new research from the Environment Agency has found that the number of cases has climbed sharply in the last 12 months.
All nine water and sewerage companies in England demonstrate consistently poor performance, with serious incidents up 60 percent in 2024 on the year before.
Of particular concern is the growing trend for pollution spills occurring from pipes carrying wastewater uphill, which made up 20 percent of all cases, having an impact on some protected waters for both wildlife and swimming.
Some 81 per cent of all serious incidents were caused by just three utility firms – Thames Water (33), Southern Water (15) and Yorkshire Water (13).
Reasons given for this poor water management include persistent underinvestment in new infrastructure, reduced resilience due to climate change impacts and poor asset maintenance.
Environment Agency chair Alan Lovell said: “This report demonstrates continued systemic failure by some companies to meet their environmental targets. The water industry must act urgently to prevent pollution from occurring and to respond rapidly when it does.
“We have made significant changes to tighten our regulation of the water industry and ensure companies are held to account. With a dedicated larger workforce and increased funding, our officers are uncovering and acting on failures to comply with environmental law.”
Under the new Water (Special Measures) Act, the agency will enjoy greater powers to take action against companies for pollution, closing the justice gap and preventing illegal activity from taking place in the first instance.
A new levy is also now being consulted on to boost funding for regulation and help recover the costs of enforcement activities.