Yorkshire Water has agreed to donate a total of £400,000 to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust after polluting two watercourses in separate incidents, following investigations by the Environment Agency.

The company breached its environmental permit with an unauthorised sewage discharge from Bellhouse Way Sewage Pumping Station, which polluted Holgate Beck in York, and two unauthorised sewage discharges from a rising main at Hemsworth Water Park, Hoyle Mill Lane Sewage Pumping Station, causing pollution at Hoyle Mill Stream at Wakefield.

It submitted two Enforcement Undertakings to the Environment Agency, which have now been accepted – £150,000 for the Holgate Beck incident and £250,000 for Hoyle Mill Stream.

An Enforcement Undertaking is a voluntary offer made by companies and individuals to make amends for their offending, and usually includes a donation to a wildlife charity to carry out environmental improvements in the local area.

Bellhouse Way Sewage Pumping Station has an environmental permit to discharge sewage into Holgate Beck in emergencies, which does not include storm conditions and heavy rain. At the start of April 2018 it discharged sewage intermittently due to an electrical failure in the main pump and blockage of the standby pump.

The alarm on the pumping station was activated, but as this coincided with a period of heavy rain it was not differentiated from other assets which are allowed to discharge during storm conditions.

As part of the Enforcement Undertaking requirements Yorkshire Water has improved its monitoring systems so that assets which are permitted to discharge in an emergency only are allocated a code to ensure they are always investigated. This code has been allocated to 670 assets across the county.

Further information from the Government announcement can be read here.