United Utilities has been hit with an £800,000 fine for illegally abstracting 22 billion litres of water from boreholes in Lancashire.
The water company has also made a £3 million contribution to support environmental projects in the area.
The fine has been issued by Warrington Magistrates Court following prosecution by the Environment Agency.
The Environment Agency said that the over abstraction caused additional stress on the environment during a period of very dry weather in 2018 and led to a significant decline in the water level available in the Fylde Aquifer.
The agency added that the aquifer “will take years to recover”.
Carol Holt, Environment Agency area director for Lancashire, said: “Our priority is to ensure clean and plentiful water for people, the economy and the environment in England and we welcome today’s sentencing which exposes unacceptable practices from United Utilities Water Limited over a prolonged period of time.
“While water companies are allowed to abstract water from the environment, over abstraction, especially during times of prolonged dry weather, has damaging impacts to our environment.
“Our actions as regulator have led to today’s sentencing and we will continue to strive for a better water sector across the country to protect our precious water supplies now, and for the future.”
The case was brought after an investigation by the Environment Agency revealed that United Utilities had taken more water than allowed by five of their abstraction licences in the Franklaw and Broughton Borehole Complex.
Grant Batty, water services drector at United Utilities, said: “We apologised for the breach in water abstraction that happened five years ago in 2018.
“We did not exceed the amount of water we could abstract on a daily and yearly basis, but we did inadvertently breach a three year rolling limit on the abstraction licence. As soon as we discovered this, we established additional controls to ensure it never happens again.
“We took action straight away, pleaded guilty and also made a £3 million voluntary contribution to local environmental improvement projects.”
Water Minister Rebecca Pow added: “It is absolutely right that companies that harm our environment are held to account by the courts, as has happened with United Utilities today.”
Proposals to increase fines for water companies were outlined in the government’s Plan for Water earlier this year.
It includes the proposition of imposing unlimited fines for companies that cause pollution.
Yesterday (15 August), the government launched a consultation on the plans to to extend enforcement powers for the Environment Agency.
Dishing out uncapped penalties was first mooted last year by short-lived environment secretary Ranil Jayawardena in response to rising public anger over reports of sewage discharges.
To date, the highest fine the agency has given out was £90 million to Southern Water relating to misreporting between 2010 and 2015.
The agency’s annual Environmental performance assessment report published last month gave United Utilities a ‘good’ rating, concluding that they are “not far” from achieving the top grade.