A water company has been fined more than £700,000 for repeatedly releasing sewage into a stream.
Yorkshire Water was issued with the penalty after pleading guilty to three offences of sewage pollution in Pools Brook country park near Chesterfield.
The three events killed fish and insects, and polluted the stream for more than half a mile.
The company was fined £733,333, plus costs and victim surcharges.
The court was told the first incident happened on 1 October 2018, when a rising main sewer pipe from Pools Brook sewage pumping station burst, causing untreated sewage to spill from a manhole into the stream that runs through the country park. The pipe was severely corroded.
Fish including tench, pike and roach in the park’s pond were killed,as were river insects. The impact on water quality stretched for more than 600 metres.
The second incident, on 27 February 2019, was caused by a blockage, mainly from wet wipes, in the plastic foul sewer pipe leading to a pressure build up in one of the pipe’s joints.
The blockage eventually caused a leak of sewage into the surface water pipe, which entered the stream.
There was no evidence of impact on fish, but water quality was affected for 700 metres.
The third incident, on 7 August 2019, was caused by a failure of a joint coupling in the same plastic foul sewer pipe as the previous incident, but in a different location, leading to sewage spilling into the surface water pipe and entering the Pools Brook stream. Again there was no evidence of impact on fish, but water quality was affected for more than 600 metres.
The Environment Agency said Yorkshire Water would not attend an interview for any of the three incidents.
Its chair, Alan Lovell, said: “Polluting the same stream three times in less than a year is unacceptable and we’re pleased Yorkshire Water has now been dealt with by the courts following our investigation.
“We expect full compliance and are committed to taking robust enforcement action where we see serious breaches.”
A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “In the seven years since the last incident at Pools Brook occurred, we’ve invested over £2.5m to relocate the two sewers involved in these incidents as well as identifying key learnings which have been embedded across our business.
“We have also looked carefully at our company processes to enhance these where necessary so we make sure a similar incident doesn’t happen again. Protecting the environment is a key part of what we aim to do, so when incidents occur that fall far below our normal standards we ensure they are thoroughly investigated and put actions in place to make sure they don’t happen again.
“No pollution incident is ever acceptable. We want to apologise for the impact the incidents at Pools Brook had in 2018 and 2019 which were the result of an inadequate external protective coating being applied to one of the sewers and wet wipes building up and causing blockages in the other sewer.”
The spokesperson also said the company was working on its largest ever environmental investment programme of £8.3bn before 2030.
