Severn Trent pays £600k over human waste pollution

Water company Severn Trent has paid £600,000 to a charity after human waste polluted a brook over a 1km (0.62-mile) stretch.

An investigation by the Environment Agency (EA) found an "overwhelming" odour and a thick coating of sewage fungus covering the bed of West Meadow Brook, near Whitwick in Leicestershire, in September 2022.

The EA said the company failed to operate a nearby pumping station properly, and the issue was not corrected for a few weeks.

Severn Trent admitted failings and made an enforcement undertaking (EU) of £600,000 to the Trent Rivers Trust.

An EU is a voluntary offer in which the EA has reason to believe an offence has been committed, and the payment helps an environmental charity to carry out improvements.

Severn Trent admitted its teams had failed to see the pumps had "latched out" and were not activated, and did not monitor the site when the telemetry system had failed.

The EA said it received reports of discharged sewage into the brook on 12 September 2022, and contractors visited Brooks Lane Pumping Station to stop the discharge on the same day.

Matt Easter, chief executive officer for the Trent Rivers Trust, said the funds would be used to restore and improve habitats and introduce or enhance natural processes to help cope better with pollution incidents in the future.

Neil Ratcliffe, investigating officer for the East Midlands EA, said: "We will always consider prosecution in the most serious cases, but enforcement undertakings are an effective enforcement tool for less serious cases.

"EUs allow companies to put things right and contribute to environmental improvements. They also allow polluters to correct and restore the harm caused to the environment and prevent repeat incidents by improving procedures."

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