United Utilities in £10,000 fine for polluting River Ribble (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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United Utilities in £10,000 fine for polluting River Ribble
10:23am Friday 11th February 2011 in Ribble Valley news
RIBBLE Sewage leak
A WATER company has been fined £10,000 for allowing sewage to leak into the River Ribble.
United Utilities admitted letting sewage leak from one of its pumping stations into a tributary of the river near Clitheroe in April last year.
Environment Agency officers received a call to its incident hotline about suspected sewage pollution.
An officer visited the site and confirmed that the water was grey with growth of sewage fungus on the bed of the stream and a strong smell of sewage.
Samples confirmed that there was a high level of bio-chemical oxygen demand on the water, causing the invertebrates in the watercourse to die, the Environment Agency said.
United Utilities confirmed that a sewage pump had failed, causing the foul sewage system to overflow into the public surface water sewer and straight into the water-course.
Jackie Monk, an officer with the Environment Agency said: “It is vital that water companies monitor their pumping stations closely as they are not permitted to discharge any raw sewage into water-courses.
Discharges of raw sewage have the potential to cause significant pollution to the environment.
“Although United Utilities responded promptly once they were notified of the incident, the investigation established the company had not responded to alarms notifying it of problems at the pumping station.”
A spokesperson from United Utilities said: “We sincerely regret this incident, and have taken a number of steps to ensure the problem does not reoccur.
“Equipment at the pumping station has been upgraded, and we have stepped up the cleaning regime at the site, to reduce risk of future blockages.
"Our alarm system has been modified, and employees have been on a refresher training course, to ensure that alarms are responded to promptly.
“We have co-operated fully with the Environment Agency throughout their review into this incident.”
The company has also been ordered to pay costs of £1,948.64.
Comments(3)
Lifeinthemix
says...
3:35pm Fri 11 Feb 11
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Me thinks Jack the Straw handled this issue which says not much for Popes replacement if we intend to get anything done about it.
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Interesting is the fact what the androgens do to the fish, they also do to humans which gives insight as to why Englishmen are becoming women....
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It's in the water tinkers.....
Guzford
says...
4:45pm Fri 11 Feb 11
happycyclist says...
11:39am Fri 11 Feb 11
Where does that £10,000 go? To the government, that's who!
It's not like anybody has a choice about their water supply -I can't suddenly swicth suppliers to South-West Water.
Water should NEVER have been privatised because it can't be an open market -oh, other than we're all free to up sticks and move to another area of the country for our water supply.
The courts should be able to impose other sorts of sanctions against United Utilities for these sort of transgressions -like firing the people in charge. Imposing fines on them doesn't affect them one jot.