{"id":12594,"date":"2025-07-21T09:23:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/12594\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T09:23:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:23:22","slug":"welsh-water-fined-after-sewage-plant-near-hereford-breaches-permit-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/12594\/","title":{"rendered":"Welsh Water fined after sewage plant near Hereford breaches permit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tanya Gupta<\/p>\n<p>BBC News, West Midlands<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753043169_446_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dkIvM hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/43f235e0-616a-11f0-960d-e9f1088a89fe.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"BBC A view of the River Wye in Herefordshire flowing through countryside under a blue sky, with hills and trees on either side and houses at the foot of the hills on the rivers edge to the left.\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj\"\/>BBC<\/p>\n<p>Discharges from Clehonger go into a tributary of the River Wye<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">A water firm has been ordered to pay \u00a336,000 in fines and costs after breaking the conditions of an environmental permit at a sewage treatment works seven times in five months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The Environment Agency (EA) said Welsh Water exceeded permitted levels of ammonia at Clehonger Sewage Treatment Works near Hereford between 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The firm was fined \u00a324,000 and ordered to pay costs of \u00a311,835.86, as well as a surcharge of \u00a3181, at Kidderminster Magistrates&#8217; Court on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Adam Shipp, EA senior environment officer, said after the hearing that such incidents were &#8220;preventable and are completely unacceptable&#8221;. Welsh Water said the court accepted there was no evidence of environmental harm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Sewage treatment works treat raw sewage to produce an effluent which is discharged without damaging the local watercourse. At Clehonger, the water is discharged into the Cage Brook which is a tributary of the River Wye, the EA said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The EA said officers were alerted following routine sampling in November 2020.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Mr Shipp said: &#8220;Incidents like this are preventable and are completely unacceptable, particularly at a time when the need to protect the water environment for wildlife and people has never been greater.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;Water companies are aware that their activities have the potential for serious environmental impacts, and they know that we will take action when they cause pollution.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">A statement from Welsh Water said the company pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">It said: &#8220;The site was compliant with its permit before this period and it has been compliant since.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">It said the issue was caused by overloading at the works following new residential developments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The statement said: &#8220;We took what action we could to ensure improved capacity at the works was funded by the developers by appearing before a planning inspector to explain the impacts of the original proposal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;We upgraded the wastewater treatment works at a cost that was \u00a31million in excess of the funding received from the developers.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tanya Gupta BBC News, West Midlands BBC Discharges from Clehonger go into a tributary of the River Wye&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-12594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}