Northumbrian Water Limited was fined a total of £3,000 after pleading guilty on Monday 6 August 2012 at Peterlee Magistrates Court to polluting a stream at Shotton in County Durham.

Northumbrian Water Limited (NWL), of Abbey Road, Pity Me, County Durham, was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay full costs of £2,429.75 to the Environment Agency, which brought the case. The court heard from Niall Carlin, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, that an Environment Agency officer visited Gore Burn on 18 June 2011, following a report from a member of the public. He found that a stretch of the Burn was grey coloured and smelt of sewage and detergent. He located the source of the effluent upstream as a sewer overflow at on Calfpasture Burn at Shotton Lane, Bracken Hill, Shotton Colliery, County Durham owned by Northumbrian Water Limited.

Samples of water were taken and later analysed to discover how much oxygen had been stripped from the water by the pollution, and so was not available for the aquatic life. The analyst’s report said that a “significant quantity of effluent” had entered the stream and that the incident was likely to have a further significant impact on the ecology of Wapping Burn, which Gore Burn flows into. The report also stated that the effect “will be highly detrimental and long-lasting and have consequences for the quality of [the watercourse]”.

The Environment Agency classified this as a Category 2 Incident, their second most serious category, as there would be significant impacts from this discharge over several hundred metres. An officer from NWL was interviewed under caution. It was admitted that the sewer overflow had overflowed due to a blockage, rather than a flood. There was a system in place to prevent overflow, but it had not worked. There had been a history of problems with this outlet, and NWL had been prosecuted for a similar discharge at this site in May 2010. In mitigation it was said that NWL acted quickly. The incident was reported to them at 12.29 hours, a crew came to the site at 13.15 and the blockage was cleared at 14.15. NWL have now increased their inspection schedule of the sewer overflow from four to six times per year.

Speaking after the case Jamie Fletcher of the Environment Agency said: “This was a serious case of pollution of a stream which had an impact on the environment. Everyone has a duty to protect the environment and we will not hesitate to prosecute if an individual or company has failed in this responsibility.”