Image description: Hand water pump pouring out water. Photo by Jainath Ponnala on Unsplash
South East Water has lost an appeal against a fine of £76,000 for extracting water from an underground source without the necessary permission from the Environment Agency (EA).
For six weeks between May and June 2021, the company illegally took more than 52 million litres from a source on a farm at Tudeley, near Tonbridge.
The company had previously held a licence for the extraction point, but had failed to renew it when it ran out in March, avoiding paying the £6,000 fee.
South East Water risked harming the environment
The EA controls how much, where and when water is abstracted through its licensing system, which is also designed to prevent water shortages.
The EA claimed that South East Water had risked harming the environment by taking the water without their permission, as abstraction licences are necessary to protect water resources, and safeguard wildlife habitats and the environment from the damaging effects of taking too much water. The EA says the unlicensed water taken in 2021 was enough to fill 300,000 baths. The company appealed the level of the penalty because no harm was caused, however this was dismissed by judge Catherine Harris in March this year following an earlier tribunal hearing.
Human error blamed
South East Water reportedly knew its licence for using the borehole at Tudeley had run out, telling investigators under caution that a changeover of staff was to blame for the mistake. However, the EA says they discovered the issue went deeper, with staff relying on manual records for when licences to abstract millions of litres of water expired, with no process in place to flag when new ones were needed. This meant no-one had checked if the licence had been renewed.
What happened between 4 May and 19 June 2021 was also not regarded as an isolated incident by the EA. South East Water had been warned by the EA several times in the previous 7 years to keep within the parameters of its abstraction licences at different locations when taking water for public supply.
South East Water paid more than £75,000 in civil sanction
The failure to renew the abstraction licence the previous March means South East Water has paid £75,859.10 in a civil sanction called a variable monetary penalty (VMPS). VMPs are an alternative to prosecution where effective measures can be taken to maintain lawful abstraction of water, and allow the Environment Agency to remove any financial gain or saving from a breach. The VMP issues includes a figure of almost £6,000, equal to the fee South East Water would have paid the Environment Agency for a licence between 1 April 2021 and 3 March 2022.
The EA says South East Water didn’t abstract any more water in Tudeley until its licence was renewed on 4 March 2022 and as a consequence of the error brought in an automated system to highlight when licences need renewal. Water companies and other sectors are legally obliged to apply for the abstraction of water for business use.
Fiona Kent, a senior environment officer for the Environment Agency in Kent, said:“South East Water acted negligently in letting the abstraction licence expire, putting the environment at risk. Luck was on their side and that of the environment that no harm was caused during the 6 weeks of unlicensed use.“Taking water with no licence from the Environment Agency seriously undermines the regulatory regime.”