Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle has confirmed that Anglian Water has been fined £1.6 million after repeated sewage pollution of the River Brain in Essex over six weeks in 2022.
District Judge Timothy King heard that local mismanagement led to a general decline in water quality between April and June 2022. The company ignored alarms showing poorly treated sewage was being discharged because of a faulty valve, and staff did not talk to each other about the incidents.
The resulting pollution stretched for nearly 14 kilometres along the Brain between Braintree and Witham. Environment Agency monitors recorded levels of toxic ammonia that were the highest seen on the river in the previous ten years.
Angela Eagle: 'Too slow to act'
"Anglian Water have clearly been too slow to act in this case and the environment has paid the price. They should, and must, do better to stop pollution before it happens," Angela Eagle said. "The government is overhauling the water system to give the public control. Tougher regulation, stronger enforcement and greater accountability, so water companies deliver for customers and the environment."
An Environment Agency investigation traced the source to Anglian Water's water recycling centre in Braintree. A faulty valve, broken for a week before the first incident in April 2022, allowed semi-solid sludge that is usually removed from sewage to be released into the river, with further discharges in late May.
Environment Agency: 'Operating outside the law'
Marcus Sibley, water industry regulatory manager for the Environment Agency in East Anglia, said the incidents were the result of organisational failure to recognise risk and act on warning signs, leaving the company "operating outside the law" and causing a significant impact on river quality.
Sitting at Cambridge magistrates' court on 15 October, the judge also ordered Anglian Water to pay costs of £27,334 and a £190 surcharge. The Environment Agency charged the company with causing a discharge of untreated sewage outside its environmental permit and with failing to comply with the permit.
