Mike
Dunning - 2-Oct-2006 - Wessex Water was today
ordered to pay £8,950 in fines and costs
after sewage effluent escaped into a small stream
at Ferndown, Dorset threatening three local nature
reserves – including one site of international
importance. The case was brought by the Environment
Agency.
On February 14, 2006 Agency
officers visited Dugdell Close, Ferndown to investigate
a report of pollution in a nearby stream. The
watercourse was contaminated with a white coloured
substance that was later found to be sewage effluent.
The pollution was traced to a sewage pumping station.
Magistrates heard that the stream
is a tributary of the Moors River, a Site of Special
Scientific Interest (SSSI) managed by English
Nature. It also flows through Parley Common, also
a SSSI and the Dorset Heaths, a designated Special
Area for Conservation (SAC) and RAMSAR site.
The illegal discharge resulted
from a pump failure at the pumping station. When
the company responded, it failed to examine whether
pollution was occurring, allowing a discharge
to continue for some hours before the Environment
Agency demanded action. Wessex Water was unable
to explain why the pump failed, but admitted the
telemetry system at the pumping station, that
automatically alerts the water company when there
is a problem, had also failed.
The sewage spill affected at
least a two kilometre stretch of river downstream
of the pumping station. Once alerted the second
time, Wessex Water sent a crew to the site and
immediately started a clean-up operation. Straw
bales were placed in the stream to filter the
contaminated water.
Appearing before East Dorset
magistrates in Wimborne today, Wessex Water, of
Claverton Down, Bath, was fined £8,000 and
ordered to pay £950 costs after pleading
guilty to, between February 13 – 14, 2006, causing
poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, namely
sewage effluent, to enter controlled waters, a
tributary of the Moors River at Dugdell Close,
Ferndown contrary to Section 85(1) and (6) of
the Water Resources Act 1991. This is the fifth
time Wessex Water has been prosecuted for such
a discharge this year.
‘Water companies have a responsibility
to ensure the pumps at their sewage pumping stations
are reliable and work correctly and telemetry
systems, that provide an early warning of a failure
or fault, are fully operational,’ said Julian
Wardlaw for the Environment Agency.
‘This is the second time in
two months this tributary has been polluted by
a discharge from a Wessex Water sewage pumping
station. We expect a thorough review to be undertaken
to prevent such unnecessary and environmentally
damaging discharges from occurring.’
