Anglian Water fined record £1.42m for contaminating water supply
Anglian Water has been fined a record £1,42m for contaminating the water supply,The company, which covers the east of England, received the fine at Northampton crown court after a prosecution brought by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) for failures that affected 1,3 million people,An investigation found that between June and December 2021 the company used unapproved materials in five drinking water tanks at four sites across its network.
Anglian was found to have used unauthorised plastic-based products to externally coat pipework submerged within tanks.These coatings later broke down into flakes and powder and entered the water supply.Anglian reported the failures to the DWI and pleaded guilty in court.Last year thousands of people in Devon became unwell after the cryptosporidium parasite was detected in the water supply.South West Water warned about 16,000 households not to drink the water without boiling it until the issue was resolved.
Schools and businesses temporarily closed, and some households had to boil their tap water for a month to remove the contaminant.Marcus Rink, the chief inspector of the DWI, said: “We’ve taken firm action in the public interest to ensure the company has removed all non-compliant material so that customers can remain confident in their water supplies.”The environment secretary, Steve Reed, said: “Contamination of drinking water on any scale is scandalous and a complete disgrace.“The record £1.4m fine handed down sends a clear signal that this criminal behaviour is unacceptable.
”All of the problems noticed across Anglian’s network have now been rectified.The investigation highlighted further issues with the company’s management, including a lack of staff training, poor oversight of the supply chain, and in some cases, water tanks that continued to be used even after the firm knew they contained unapproved products.Sign up to Headlines UKGet the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morningafter newsletter promotionThe company pleaded guilty to five offences under regulation 31 of the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2016.An Anglian spokesperson said: “We apologise for and regret breaching regulation 31 and accept the judgment for the five sites in 2021.The procedures we had in place fell short and as a result we have since invested significantly to improve these and have shared our learnings across the water industry.
“Protecting the water supply of our customers could not be more fundamental to our business, this is reflected in the fact we have not had a drinking water prosecution in over 20 years,Despite the breach, there was no evidence of any contamination of the water supply and the judge agreed based on independent expert reports that the risk to customers was very low,This view was supported by DWI-appointed experts, UKHSA,We continue to work with our regulator to ensure best practice is followed at all times,”The Guardian recently revealed the safety of the UK’s tap water could be jeopardised as there are now no treatment facilities that are accredited to test the materials used to clean the water.
During a Commons committee hearing on Tuesday, the chief executive of Thames Water, Chris Weston, said the company’s desalination plant was out of order as there was no testing facility in the UK that would allow it to test new membranes.
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England’s titanic tussle with Australia enthralled a nation but then the Test game vanished from UK free-to-air TVHow are you planning to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 2005 men’s Ashes? Is it finally time to get that Kevin Pietersen skunk cut? Gather your friends for a drunken knees-up around Trafalgar Square?Realistically, a quiet afternoon on YouTube will do, with Simon Jones’s reverse-swinger to Michael Clarke on repeat, off-stump gone like a popped cork. That rabbit hole should end up taking you to Pietersen’s 2014 appearance on the Graham Norton Show in which he discusses his strained relationship with Andrew Strauss while perched next to Taylor Swift. Yes, that actually happened.Or you could dig into the culture, media and sport committee report published in February 2006 titled “Ashes to Ashes – the death knell for live Test match cricket on free-to-air TV?” You know you want to.It’s not a thriller but worth your time if you’re curious to know how a sport has its breakout moment – the series attracted a peak audience on Channel 4 in excess of 8 million – before going into hiding
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