Rob
Walsh - 15-May-2008 - Northumbrian Water
were fined £4,000 in Sunderland Magistrates
Court today (May 15) for seriously polluting
a stream in County Durham with raw sewage.
The company, based in
Durham, pleaded guilty and were also ordered
to pay full costs of £2,022.91 to
the Environment Agency, which brought the
case.
Trevor Cooper, prosecuting
for the Environment Agency, told the court
that Northumbrian Water had contacted the
Environment Agency on 2 November 2007 to
report raw sewage discharging from a manhole
into the Elemore Vale Burn at Easington
Lane.
Environment Agency officers
met with Northumbrian Water at the site
on 3 November and found the watercourse
was grossly polluted with sewage fungus
and black sludge and there was a strong
odour of sewage.
An Ecological Appraisal
Officer from the Environment Agency carried
out an ecological survey of the watercourse
on 5 November 2007, which found that the
incident had a major negative impact on
the ecology of the watercourse and that
the effects would be highly detrimental
and long-lasting. Untreated and decaying
sewage was seen for over 1 kilometre downstream
and invertebrate life was killed for at
least 500 metres downstream.
It was discovered that
a manhole cover had been removed by vandals
and the manhole chamber was full of debris
including stones, rubble and a plant pot,
which caused the sewer to block. This led
to sewage backing up and discharging into
the watercourse.
The sewer had been on
a regular maintenance checklist following
a previous raw sewage discharge in August
2003, but it was taken off this in 2006
as no further problems had been encountered.
It has now been placed on a monthly check.
Although the Elemore
Vale Burn is only a small watercourse in
the Elemore Vale area of Easington Lane,
it flows through an area of high amenity
value next to a public footpath and also
skirts a football ground and residential
area.
In mitigation it was
said that the company offered an early guilty
plea, that they had reported the incident
and had co-operated fully with the Environment
Agency. Their culpability was low because
of the actions of the vandals.
Charge: On or before
2nd November 2007 did cause polluting matter,
namely crude sewage, to enter controlled
waters, namely the Elemore Vale Burn, Easington
Lane, Elemore Vale, County Durham. Contrary
to Section 85(1) and 85(6) of the Water
Resources Act 1991.
+ More
Honour for Environment
Agency Walham flood heroes
Michelle Dolphin - 15-May-2008
- On Thursday 15 May 2008 Environment Agency
Walham flood hero, Richard Evans, was presented
with the Chairman’s Award from the Rivers
and Coastal Group (RCG) of the Chartered
Institution of Water and Environmental Management
(CIWEM).
Mr Evans accepted the
award on behalf of the Environment Agency
Operations Delivery Teams from Gloucester,
Kidderminster and Shrewsbury whose bravery
and hard work saved Walham electricity switching
station from flooding last July. He was
accompanied by Chris Griffin of Gloucestershire
Fire and Rescue Service, joint winner of
the award, one of the fire officers pumping
water out from behind the Environment Agency’s
temporary defences.
The RCG committee were
unanimous in their decision to award the
prize jointly to the Environment Agency
and Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue for
their work to save Walham. The trophy and
certificates were presented by RCG Chairman,
Jackie Banks, at their spring meeting at
Austin Court, Birmingham today.
National Grid switching
station, Walham, just north of Gloucester
on the banks of the River Severn, provides
electricity to half a million homes in Gloucestershire
and South Wales. In July 2007, several days
of record rainfall caused widespread flooding,
threatening to knock out those vital power
supplies and leave residents in the cold
and dark.
A call from COBRA, the
Government’s emergency contingencies committee,
came through Gold Control on the afternoon
of Sunday 22 July 2007 asking the Environment
Agency to protect the site from the rising
floodwater.
Having been instructed
not to put their hands above head height
because of electricity cables barely an
arm’s length away, over twenty Environment
Agency men, under the direction of manager
Brian Jones, worked through the night in
floodwater next to live switches to erect
temporary flood defences around the switching
station.
Team members reported
afterwards that they could hear the electricity
crackling and buzzing and see it arcing
against the night sky while they fought
to erect the barriers in time. They were
supported by military personnel and Gloucestershire
Fire and Rescue.
Award winner Richard
Evans said “It is an honour to accept this
award on behalf of the team that worked
so hard save Walham from flooding last July.
“Like so many of my
colleagues, I had already been out since
early morning doing debris clearing and
was on the way home when I got the call
to go over to Walham. I never did get back
to my house that night.
“We quickly realised
that it was a race against the clock but
we had no history or experience of having
worked at this site. We went into the unknown
but we did the job – and safely - at the
end of the day, saving half a million homes
from being plunged into darkness.”
The original idea to
use the temporary barriers to save Walham
came from Environment Agency Flood Risk
Manager, Anthony Perry, who says:
“It's really good that
our heroes on the ground at Walham have
been acknowledged for their hard work. The
Environment Agency’s temporary flood barriers
saved Walham, and the ingenuity, expertise
and dedication of Environment Agency staff
made it possible.
“They were prepared
to try something new in dangerous and difficult
circumstances to save the switching station
from flooding and homes and businesses across
Gloucestershire and South Wales from losing
their electricity supplies.”
