BREWERY FINED FOR POLLUTING RIVER WEY

19/09/2005 - Brewery giants Coors Brewers face a £19,000 hangover after it failed to upgrade a faulty drainage system which allowed polluting waste effluent to escape into the River Wey.
Coors Brewers Ltd, which also produces such brands as Carling, Grolsch and Worthingtons, pleaded guilty on 14 September to allowing brewery effluent to escape into the surface water drainage system at the Alton Brewery in Manor Park, Alton, Hampshire, polluting a stretch of the River Wey (North).
The company was fined £15,000 with £4,000 costs.
Aldershot Magistrates’ Court heard about the Alton Brewery’s chequered history of allowing brewery effluent to be released into the surface water drainage system which discharges to the River Wey. In December 2003 the Environment Agency ordered the brewery to undertake a series of preventative improvement and monitoring measures to help stop further incidents from occurring.
But on 22 July 2004 the Environment Agency received reports that the River Wey had been polluted once more. Investigations traced the source of the pollution back from the River Wey to the brewery's effluent system. This highlighted the continued failure by the brewery to take adequate monitoring or preventative measures.
The court heard how brewery effluent, a waste by-product of the brewery process, can harm the river environment as it contains high levels of sugars and yeast which encourage the rapid growth of micro organisms that consume the oxygen in the river water, thereby harming aquatic life. It also smothers the river bed.
An investigation of the site revealed defects in the brewery's drainage system which allowed the effluent to pass into a culverted watercourse which runs underneath the brewery. The effluent should have been pumped away via the foul sewer system to be treated.
Investigating officer for the Environment Agency Guy Elliot said: “We have been patient with Coors Brewers Ltd and have tried to work with the company by giving it ample time and advice to upgrade the drainage system that was causing all the problems.
"However the brewery failed to failed to fully follow our advice and consequently continued to pollute the local drainage system and the River Wey from time to time. This forced us to take prosecution action against the company."
The case was brought under s85(1) of the Water Resources Act 1991. Members of the public should report pollution incidents to the Environment Agency by calling freephone 0800 80 70 60.