SOUTH West Water was this week ordered to pay £28,000 in fines and costs for discharging sewage effluent into the River Yeo near Crediton.

The case was brought by the Environment Agency, after one of its officers saw effluent gushing from the Crediton Sewage Treatment Works into the river on June 19 last year.

Two days later, a second officer returned to the river and found the discharge had stopped, but the riverbed was carpeted with sewage fungus from bank to bank, and dozens of dead fish were in the river.

An Agency spokesman said the treatment process at the Crediton works had begun to go wrong in April 2010.

The spokesman said: “South West Water carried out maintenance to repair it, but should have been aware when the plant, that was operating at reduced capacity, developed further problems.”

At Exeter Magistrates' Court on Monday, South West Water was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £8,000 costs after admitting two offences: one of discharging noxious or polluting matter into inland freshwater, and a second of operating a sewage treatment works while in breach of its site permit.

A South West Water spokesman apologised for the pollution, and said prior to this incident, issues at the Crediton works had been identified and work had begun to upgrade the treatment plant as part of a £775,000 scheme.

However, extreme hot weather and other factors had increased operational problems, the spokesman added.

“Once we were aware of the impact on the river, we tankered all effluent away for treatment elsewhere and continued working on the site until we and the Environment Agency were confident the site was working normally.”

South West Water said it had since been working with the Agency to help the river recover.