Dawlish News
Water firms are the biggest river polluters
BRITAIN’S water companies are this weekend revealed as the worst polluters of the country’s rivers and beaches - responsible for more than 300 offences in the past five years.
Of the water companies, the most prolific polluter has been South West Water, which has been guilty of 47 incidents of unlawful pollution. It has been prosecuted for illegal discharges of sewage into the Taw Torridge Estuary in Devon, the River Truro in Cornwall and the River Dart, which runs off Dartmoor. The company has been fined £171,500 over the past five years.
In one of the most serious incidents involving South West Water, families at Dawlish beach on the south coast were warned to get out of the water because of sewage overflowing from a pumping station in the summer of 2006. The company was fined £7,000.
