Environment Agency wants water bosses jailed for serious environmental crimes

The Environment Agency has scalded England’s water and sewerage companies for their “terrible” environmental performance and has threatened to prosecute chief executives and board members.

The public body’s Water and sewerage companies in England: environmental performance report 2021 describes the performance of the nine water companies as “the worst we have seen for years”. Against its four-star rating, four water companies (Anglian, Thames, Wessex, Yorkshire) were rated two stars, which means they “require significant improvement”, and two (Southern and South West Water) fell to one star, the bottom rating, which means they are “terrible across the board”.

Serious pollution incidents in 2021 rose to 62, the highest since 2013, and there were eight category 1 (the most serious) incidents – up from three in the previous year. The Environment Agency is laying the blame squarely at the feet of the directors who “let this occur”.

Since 2015 the Environment Agency has handed out over £138M of fines, but it says this is nowhere near enough. Fines for environmental crimes have no limit, but the Agency believes that courts are being too lenient and should be handing out much higher penalties for serious and deliberate pollution incidents.

Furthermore, repeat offenders will now expect criminal prosecutions for environmental incidents, and, for the most serious environmental crimes, the Environment Agency is calling for prison sentences for chief executives and board members. It would also like to see company directors struck off if found guilty of environmental crimes.

The Environment Agency has begun the country’s biggest ever investigation into environmental crime. It will be looking into all nine water and sewerage companies to discover whether they have knowingly and deliberately broken the law in relation to the treatment and discharge of sewage.

Environment Agency chair Emma Howard Boyd signs off her foreword to the report: “Water companies exist to serve the public. Their environmental performance is a breach of trust. The polluter must pay.”

Last year MPs voted down an amendment to the Environment Act that would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump wastewater into rivers. Following public outcry, NCE contacted Ofwat and several of the companies to find out what measures they would take to minimise waste water discharge.

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