Thames Water has been fined £3.34m after millions of litres of
raw sewage flooded 2 rivers near Gatwick.
Judge Christine Laing KC DL told Lewes crown court Thames Water
deliberately misled the Environment Agency during its
investigation.
The untreated effluent killed several thousand fish after
equipment failed in late 2017, and the consequence was sewage
pouring into 1 river and then another for several hours.
Investigators found almost 1,400 dead fish in Gatwick Stream and
the River Mole, but the court heard this was a fraction of the
number the Environment Agency believes were killed.
Many more would have been lost in vegetation and deep pools or
eaten by birds and other animals. An Environment Agency officer
said the Mole was “carpeted” with dead fish. Species killed
included a large 6lbs barbel, plus bream, chub, gudgeon, perch,
pike and roach.
A pump at the company’s sewage treatment works in Crawley was
activated in error. This led to a storm lagoon discharging sewage
and rainwater into the stream, which pushing it into the Mole,
despite there being no significant rainfall. The lagoon should
only come into operation in wet weather.
Judge Laing heard that in the days after the incident, Thames
Water said its infrastructure had nothing to do with the
pollution. However, they later pleaded guilty to 4 breaches of
environmental law.
Jamie Lloyd, a senior environment officer at the Environment
Agency and who led the investigation, said:
“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.”
The Environment Agency told the court it was a “reckless failure”
by Thames Water to not put in place systems to avoid the
pollution – and to enforce them.
The problems started a day before the incident. A pump at the
sewage works, in the shadow of Gatwick Airport, started working
incorrectly, filling the storm lagoon with untreated sewage. The
next day, that effluent overflowed from the lagoon into Gatwick
Stream and the River Mole.
Thames Water had allowed untreated sewage to pour into the rivers
from the lagoon outside of storm conditions. That was illegal.
Nearly 5 kilometres of river, full of protected species like
European eel and brown trout and countless other fish, were in
grave danger. It had been a popular spot for anglers.
The storm lagoon was only three-quarters the legally required
size, meaning it filled up with sewage earlier, discharged into
the rivers sooner, giving less protection to fish.
A visual check of the storm lagoon would have told them. Staff
could have looked at equipment monitoring the rivers and at the
water itself. A range of options to mitigate the disaster were
available, but all were missed.
Logbooks revealed staff consistently rated equipment as
“unsatisfactory” in the months before the incident and several
weeks afterwards.
Thames Water pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to 4 breaches
of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations
2016 regarding the pollution and operation of Crawley sewage
treatment works between 9 and 14 October 2017.
In addition to the £3.34m fine, judge Laing ordered Thames Water
to pay the Environment Agency’s costs of £128,961.05.
Prosecutions of Thames Water by the Environment Agency for
pollution incidents have now led to fines of £35.7m between 2017
and 2023.
