Thames Water was fined more than any other company in Britain for polluting the environment last year, according to figures from the Environment Agency.
The company, which provides all the sewers in the borough of Barnet and provides roughly half the borough's water mains supply, was fined a total of £288,000 last year.
This figure includes a £250,000 fine for polluting the river Thames and ten homes in Erith, East London, with five million gallons of raw sewage and industrial effluent in November 1998. The incident was so serious that the Chemical Incident Response Unit of Guy's Hospital had to be called in.
The company was taken to court five times in 2000 for six separate incidents. None of them took place in the borough.
A spokesman for Thames Water said: "The figure that's given is due to one incident that happened three years ago.
"We care very much for the environment, it's a vital part of our business. We have invested over a billion pounds at sewage treatment works which has had the knock-on effect of making the Thames so clean that several species of fish have come back to it."
He added that the Erith incident had been due to human error and extensive works have been undertaken to ensure that could not happen again.
Thames Water has been singled out for special attention by water industry regulator Ofwat in a report on leakages published this week. The company was one of only three set mandatory targets for reducing leakages and Ofwat director general Philip Fletcher said he "remained particularly concerned about the position at Thames Water".
October 10, 2001 18:51
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