Environment Agency: Pollution incident killed hundreds of fish at Walton Colliery Nature Park
Yorkshire Water Services Ltd has been fined £600,000 after an ageing sewage pipe burst and killed hundreds of fish in a Wakefield lake. The company was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Tuesday 19 January after pleading guilty to one charge of causing a water discharge that was not authorised by an environmental permit. Yorkshire Water was also ordered to pay investigation and prosecution costs of £24,000 to the Environment Agency, which brought the prosecution following a pollution incident at Walton Colliery Nature Park in October 2013. At an earlier hearing, the court heard that sometime on or before 5 October 2013 a rising main sewage pipe from the company’s Shay Lane pumping station burst and raw sewage flowed into Drain Beck, which feeds a fishing lake in Walton Park which itself flows into the Barnsley Canal. To read more go to: