NI Water fined £3k after Dundrum sewage spill

NI Water fined £3k after Dundrum sewage spill

16 November 2022

NORTHERN Ireland Water was fined £3,000 at Downpatrick Magistrates’ Court on Thursday as a result of a sewage discharge in Dundrum.

The company admitted responsibility for the discharge which occurred on April 14 last year.

The court was told that a sewer in Main Street was the source of the overflow and that the sewage found its way into the inner bay, which is a designated area of outstanding beauty and a protected shellfish water area.

A prosecution lawyer said the discharge was regarded as being of “medium severity” and that the sewage contained sludge.

However, he said samples were not taken owing to Covid-19 restrictions at the time.

There was no evidence that fish or shellfish had been killed or damaged as a result of the pollution.

A solicitor for Northern Ireland Water said the discharge was caused by a blockage of “third party material” in storm overflow.

He said a monitoring system, which had been installed after previous incidents, had not alerted NI Water as to what was happening.

He emphasised that once NI Water was made aware of the incident it had staff on site and the blockage was cleared.

“All of the steps you would expect to be taken have been taken,” the solicitor continued.

“There is not sense that this has not been taken seriously. NI Water has been open about this case and is part of the solution.”

The solicitor asked District Judge Amanda Brady to be as lenient as possible.

Judge Brady was told that the maximum fine for an offence of this type was one of £20,000.

“Sewage in a main street is not acceptable and sewage going into a bay is not acceptable,” she said.

“Obviously something happened that should not have happened.”

Judge Brady said Dundrum Bay was a protected area for shellfish and that the “degree of responsibility” on NI Water was high.

However, she accepted there was no evidence of fish kill and that the company had done its best to clean up after the discharge.

A charge of contravening the conditions of a consent was withdrawn.

A NI Water spokesperson said afterwards: “NI Water takes its responsibility to the environment with the utmost seriousness, helping make our rivers and beaches the cleanest that they have ever been. 

“Unfortunately, a blockage within the network of inappropriate wipes and sewer related debris caused an overflow pipe to spill into the sea.

“Staff acted quickly in responding to this incident, once NI Water was made aware of the spill, the blockage of inappropriate materials and silt was located and cleared. 

“The initial emergency work was followed up with a full desilt of the sewer and further removal of inappropriate items which should reduce the risk of this happening in the future.”  

The spokesperson continued: “No amount of investment or work 

will completely stop blocked pipes if people continue to flush wipes — including those labelled as flushable —sanitary items and cotton buds down the toilet.

“We need our customers to help us in this battle by being mindful of what they flush.  The clean up of the shore involved removing thousands of wipes and ‘rags’ which had come out of the overflow pipe.  

“NI Water treats 340 million litres of waste water every day through a network which comprises over 15,000 kilometres of pipes and more than 1,000 wastewater treatment works. 

“The extent and size of the network we operate means there is a risk of pollution incidents of this nature occurring.  For this reason, the company is set stringent targets by the Utility Regulator to reduce pollution incidents.”

The spokesperson added: “Whilst these targets have been consistently met and exceeded, on those occasions when an incident does arise, we review it to see what actions can be taken and what we can learn from it to prevent it happening again.”