A £3.3 million fine has been imposed on Thames Water for a “reckless” event, in which millions of liters of untreated sewage were released into waterways close to Gatwick, destroying 1,700 fish.
Politicians claimed that, this is another evidence that the struggling business, which was just made aware of its impending bankruptcy, needs to be changed.
Lewes Crown Court’s two-day sentence hearing was informed that, on October 11, 2017, there was a “significant and lengthy” duration of pollution of the Gatwick Stream and River Mole between Crawley, West Sussex, and Horley, Surrey.
However, in a statement, Judge Christine Laing KC stated that, she thought Thames Water made a “deliberate attempt” to deceive the Environment Agency over the occurrence, including by disregarding water readings, and presenting an assessment to the regulator that denied their responsibilities for the pollution.
“It’s time to rip up Thames Water and reform it from top to bottom. This scandal-ridden firm has put profit first, leading to animals being killed. Ministers have been dismissing the sewage crisis for far too long, instead of taking meaningful action, they sat on their hands. Our precious shellfish at sea were already suffering from sewage discharges, now over a thousand fish in our rivers have been left dead. When will enough be enough.”
The Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson, Tim Farron.
The Labour party has proposed that, it will automatically fine water corporations for pollution so that, they are penalized for a violation right away.
“This is a significant fine for Thames Water, which highlights the seriousness of the offence,” said Jim McMahon, Labour’s shadow environment secretary. However, it shouldn’t have taken five years to get here, which is why Labour’s plan for water would enforce wastewater discharge fines automatically.
“Working people have a right to quality of life and the places where they live, work and holiday to be treated with respect and not as open sewers by the Tories.”
The Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson, Tim Farron
In relation to four accusations of improperly discharging garbage in October 2017, Thames Water entered a plea of guilty on February 28.
In a lawsuit initiated by the Environment Agency in 2021, Southern Water received the largest fine ever imposed on a water corporation for dumping sewage without permission. The fine totaled £90 million and covered roughly 7,000 instances across Hampshire, Kent, and Sussex.
“Thames Water missed several opportunities to prevent this pollution incident from occurring. Staff appear to have been oblivious to malfunctions at the sewage treatment works leading up to it and did nothing to intervene. When the alarm was raised, no decisive action was taken until the damage was done.
“Thames Water failed to take responsibility for the incident until several years later and didn’t provide vital information when requested by the Environment Agency during our investigation. We brought this case due to the major environmental impact caused, and because it was entirely avoidable. Thames Water failed to have adequate systems in place to manage the pollution-risk from their site and didn’t respond to alarms.”
Jamie Lloyd, a senior environment officer at the Environment Agency.
The court was informed that the storm lagoon was only three-quarters the size that was legally necessary, which caused it to fill up with sewage earlier and release it into the rivers earlier, providing less safeguards for fish.
Logbooks revealed that personnel routinely evaluated equipment as “unsatisfactory” in the months leading up to the occurrence and for several weeks thereafter.
