Welsh Water Fined £1.35m After 800 Sewage Permit Breaches

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water has been hit with a £1.35 million fine after admitting to a staggering 800 breaches of its environmental permits for sewage discharge 💰

The water company blamed an internal restructure, IT issues and the Covid-19 pandemic for the violations, which occurred during 2020 and 2021.

However, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) criticised the company for what it called “avoidable” “inadequacies” in its processes.

Siân Williams, Head of operations from NRW said: “This case highlights inadequacies in the processes at Dŵr Cymru which led to widespread permit breaches across Wales and over the border during a period of two years.

“While we appreciate the disruption all businesses faced during 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic, we believe the failings shown by Dŵr Cymru were avoidable should better contingency planning have been in place.”

The regulator called the case “landmark” and warned it “will not hesitate to use our regulatory and enforcement powers” against permit holders.

In addition to the fine, the company was ordered to pay £70,237.70 in costs.

NRW had previously downgraded Welsh Water from a four-star (industry leading) company in 2020 to a two-star (requires improvement) company in 2022 and 2023.

A Welsh Water spokesman responded: “Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water has a strong record of compliance with our monitoring obligations prior to and after the period relevant to this matter.

“There has been no identified environmental harm associated with this case and the monitoring failures represent a very small number of examples in a programme involving tens of thousands of submissions each year. Nonetheless, we recognise that our compliance fell short during 2020/21 and we entered a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity.”