City Council Fined Pounds3,000 for Sewage Leak into River

Plymouth City Council has been fined more than pounds3,000 after sewage leaked into a South Devon river.

The council was yesterday ordered to pay pounds3,222 in fines and costs after a small stream near Ivybridge was polluted with sewage. The case was brought by the Environment Agency.

On June 26 last year, the agency received a report that sewage was overflowing from a manhole and running into a tributary of the Silverbridge Lake. It was taken into the lake via a surface water drainage system at Langage Industrial Estate, Ivybridge. The council is responsible for drainage at the industrial estate.

Under normal circumstances sewage is pumped from the estate to a treatment works. The illegal discharge was caused by a breakdown of the pumping station in Rowdown Close.

An agency officer arrived and saw the stream had turned "grey" and was "seriously contaminated" with sewage fungus. Fungal growth on the stream bed suggested the pollution had been going on for some time.

The court heard that South West Water contractors had inspected, maintained and cleaned the Rowdown Close station until 2005, when the city council took over responsibility for the site.

Inspection of the site revealed the switches operating both pumps had tripped so they were not operating. This allowed sewage levels to rise and eventually discharge overflow.

The council pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing sewage effluent to enter controlled waters and was fined pounds2,000 with pounds1,222 costs.

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