Yorkshire Water has agreed to make a £235,000 charity donation after it illegally discharged sewage into a Harrogate stream.
The incident occurred in August 2015 when the company’s Stray Road combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharged into Hookstone Beck during dry weather, in breach of its environmental permit, leaving sewage fungus on the stream bed.
In response, the water company submitted an Enforcement Undertaking to the Environment Agency – a voluntary offer made to make amends for its offending.
This will see Yorkshire Water make its donation to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust which will use the funds on environmental improvements in North Yorkshire including native crayfish conservation and reed bed management at Ripon City Wetlands.
It has additionally upgraded its telemetry to allow continuous monitoring of the storm overflow.
A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “We have made significant improvements in our operations since this incident in 2015, including installing telemetry across 98% of our CSOs with the remaining CSOs to be monitored by the end of this year. This helps to monitor our network and identify incidents of this nature so they can be corrected quickly.
“When things go wrong, we understand we have a responsibility to make it right. As a result, we have donated £235,000 to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, money which will be spent in North Yorkshire to continue to provide excellent land for the people and wildlife of Yorkshire to enjoy.”
Claire Barrow, Environment Agency area environment manager, said: “We are holding the water industry to account like never before and while we will always take forward prosecutions in the most serious cases, Enforcement Undertakings are an effective enforcement tool to allow companies to put things right and contribute to environmental improvements.
“They allow polluters to correct and restore the harm caused to the environment and prevent repeat incidents by improving their procedures, helping ensure future compliance with environmental requirements.”