Severn Trent: 'Reckless' water firm fined over £2m after 260 million litres of raw sewage illegally poured into River Trent

Severn Trent has been fined more than £2 million for allowing “huge amounts” of raw sewage to be discharged into the River Trent. The discharge occurred from Strongford Wastewater Treatment Works in Staffordshire.

Over the course of the incident, between November 2019 and February 2020, approximately 470 million litres of raw sewage was discharged. Approximately 260 million litres of that sewage was illegally discharged as it was in contravention of the conditions of an environmental permit. This figure of 260 million litres is the equivalent of just over ten Olympic-sized swimming pools. 

Yesterday (Monday 19 February) district judge Kevin Grego at Cannock Magistrates' Court concluded there was a "reckless failure" by Severn Trent to have in place and implement a proper system of contingency planning. The judge fined the company £1,072,000 and £1,000,000 - plus costs of £16,476.67 and a victim surcharge of £181. 

The Environment Agency initially received a report on 14 February 2020 with Severn Trent Water saying there had been an issue with the screw pumps at the inlet to Strongford WTW. Two of the three pumps had failed and this was causing crude sewage to go to the storm overflow and discharge into the Trent.

It became apparent that one of the screw pumps had previously failed in December 2019 due to a gear box malfunction and a replacement was in the process of being made in Germany as there was no supplier in the UK. The court was told that 'Flow to Full Treatment' limits, the level of sewage and rain, or flow, that a sewage treatment works must treat before it is permitted to discharge, had been altered manually by staff at Strongford WTW. The court also heard that the limits had been altered with the full knowledge of the site manager.

This evidence was backed up by Severn Trent Water’s own logbooks for the site and had been happening for some time. This was a breach of the environmental permit and changes to the FFT limits were recorded on 18 different dates between November 2019 to February 2020.

A second pump then failed on 14 February 2020 again due to an issue with the gearbox. This meant there was only one functioning pump and so it couldn’t cope with any increases in rainfall which caused sewage to prematurely overflow into the river. During this incident approximately 700–1000 litres per second of untreated sewage discharged into the River Trent.

It took five days for the site to come back into compliance as an emergency pump had to be sent from Holland. The judge said the submissions by Severn Trent were “Panglossian” (extremely optimistic) adding that the “risk as set out above was real.”

The judge said: “The amount of untreated sewage over more than five days flowing into the water system was enormous. Those who live in the affected area and pay STW to provide clean drinking water and safely treat sewage would not consider it to be otherwise.” The incident was further compounded by Storm Dennis which arrived on 15 February 2020.

Robbie Moore, the Minister for Water and Rural Growth, said: "It is absolutely right that those who damage our natural environment pay for their actions. No-one should profit from illegal behaviour and that’s why last week we announced a crackdown on bonuses for water company bosses. Severn Trent’s fine will be put into our Water Restoration Fund, which will channel money directly back into projects that improve water quality.”

Adam Shipp, a senior environment officer at the Environment Agency who led the investigation, said Severn Trent “were fortunate that this incident did not cause a catastrophic pollution in the Trent” as the river “already had high flows when the discharge occurred.”

He added: “Our investigation showed that their contingency plans were woefully inadequate, with a major pump being out of action for 52 days prior to the incident. Even though Severn Trent knew Storm Clara and Storm Dennis were about to arrive they did not think to proactively source alternative pumps and get them to site.

“When the second of the three pumps failed it made sourcing and installing a replacement pump very difficult and as a consequence the works was not properly functioning for another five days and eight hours. This is not the sort of response we would expect to see from a professional multinational company and as a consequence they have now put in place on-site measures to ensure that an incident like this does not happen again.”