WELSH Water have been ordered to pay £36,000 in fines and costs for a pollution incident in Herefordshire affecting the River Wye.

At Kidderminster Magistrates Court last week, the Environment Agency successfully prosecuted Welsh Water for breaking conditions of an environmental permit at a Herefordshire sewage treatment works seven times in a five-month period.

The court heard that effluent discharged into the Cage Brook at Clehonger, which is a tributary of the River Wye.

The court was told that the sewage treatment works treat raw sewage which produces an effluent that is generally discharged without damaging the local watercourse.

However, the court heard from officers from the Environment Agency who were alerted to an issue following routine sampling results in November 2020.

The environmental permit states that Welsh Water must not discharge effluent containing more than 18 milligrams/litre of ammonia on more than two occasions in a 12-month period.

The results showed that in a five-month period from November 23, 2020 to April 17, 2021 the limit had been exceeded seven times ranging from 18.2 mg/l to 26.2 mg/l.

Officials from Welsh Water told the Environment Agency that the company was aware of additional loading coming into the site from a new development.

In mitigation, the lawyer for Welsh Water stated that the company had spent a significant amount of money to improve the infrastructure at the site and that since this incident, there had been no further issues or breaches of permit condition.

Adam Shipp, a senior environment officer at the Environment Agency, which led the investigation, said: "Incidents like this are preventable and are completely unacceptable, particularly at a time when the need to protect the water environment for wildlife and people has never been greater.

"Water companies are aware that their activities have the potential for serious environmental impacts, and they know that we will take action when they cause pollution.

"The Environment Agency does and will continue to hold water companies to account when their performance falls below acceptable standards."

Welsh Water was fined £24,000 for exceeding permitted levels of sewage effluent from the Clehonger Sewage Treatment Works near Hereford. The company was also ordered to pay costs of £11,835.86 and a surcharge of £181.

A Welsh Water spokesperson said: “We pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity to the charge, which related to sample readings for ammonia in final effluent at Clehonger Wastewater Treatment Works that exceeded our permitted limit.

“These were recorded by us between November 2020 and April 2021, and reported to the Environment Agency. The site was compliant with its permit before this period and it has been compliant since.

“The court accepted there was no evidence of environmental harm. The root cause of the exceedances was over-loading of the works following new residential developments.

“We took what action we could to ensure improved capacity at the works was funded by the developers, by appearing before a Planning Inspector to explain the impacts of the original proposal.

“We upgraded the wastewater treatment works at a cost that was £1million in excess of the funding received from the developers.”

The ongoing River Wye pollution legal claim will now include Welsh Water.

Legal action over pollution in the Wye, Lugg and Usk catchment area has been expanded to include Welsh Water as well as Cargill Plc, Avara Foods and Freemans of Newent as defendants.

Sewage spills by the water company into surrounding rivers make Welsh Water also accountable for pollution that has damaged the river water quality, says law firm Leigh Day.

The law firm acknowledges that the industrial-scale chicken production is responsible for the bulk of river water pollution in the Wye catchment.

However, phosphorus and nitrates that are also present in sewage discharges from Welsh Water’s operations are also contributing to the pollution of the rivers.

Now, as a result of a Supreme Court ruling last summer, a sewage nuisance claim can be brought against a water company, Leigh Day is able to add Welsh Water to the legal action.