Rachael
Collins - 1-Sep-2006 - Thames Water Utilities
Ltd has been fined £50,000 today (Friday
1 September) for polluting a stretch of the Dagenham
Brook in a densely populated area of Leyton, East
London, with raw sewage.
The urban river, lined with
homes, businesses, and recreation areas was polluted
with thousands of gallons of untreated sewage,
which escaped into the river from the company’s
storm tanks at South Access Road, Walthamstow.
Due to the seriousness of the
offence magistrates at Waltham Forest Magistrates’
Court had committed the case to Snaresbrook Crown
Court for sentencing.
The company, based in Reading,
Berkshire, was fined £50,000 and ordered
to pay £2854 in costs.
Thames Water had failed to maintain
storm tanks which allowed sewage to pour into
the river through holes in the joints between
precast concrete sections which made up the tank
walls. These joints contained a sealing compound,
which had failed in a number of places.
Environment officer Iain Regan
said: “The sewage contaminated nearly two miles
of the Dagenham Brook, which then discharges in
the River Lee at New Spitalfields Market, in Leyton.
The impact on the river was significant; the river
was a cloudy grey colour and there was a strong
sewage smell along the affected stretch of the
river.”
Storm tanks are used to temporarily
store millions of gallons of sewage during times
of heavy rainfall when the sewers are unable to
cope. They are meant to prevent sewage from spilling
out of overloaded sewerage networks and polluting
rivers. Once the rainfall subsides the sewage
is returned to the sewers. However, there had
been very little rainfall during the previous
month.
A member of the public spotted
the river level rising at the end of their garden
and alerted the Environment Agency. Details provided
by the reporter lead staff to suspect the cause
was sewage.
On 8 August 2005 flows in the
river were low which meant that nearly all of
the flow in the river downstream of the storm
tanks was sewage.
A fleet of tankers worked for
three days to remove the sewage from the river
at two locations, Orient Way and New Spitalfields
Market, in Leyton, which although failing to reduce
the impact on Dagenham Brook did alleviate the
problem in the River Lee.
“Thames Water responded to the
initial incident in a responsible manner. However
it was deficiencies in their inspection and maintenance
programme which caused this urban river to be
polluted with thousands of gallons of sewage,”
continued Iain.
In his summing up the Judge,
Mr Recorder Jones, said that “These tanks were
not maintained as well as they should have been”.
