Council calls for accountability over sea sewage

Councillors have called for accountability over an incident which led sewage to be pumped into the sea.

Accidental damage to a main sewer pipe in Middlesbrough on 26 June led Northumbrian Water to carry out several "heavily diluted" discharges to avoid the local system backing up with sewage.

"No swim" alerts were later issued by Redcar and Cleveland Council, affecting beaches from Hartlepool to Saltburn - but not until three days later, when it was told about the incident.

Northumbrian Water said it was the Environment Agency's (EA) responsibility to tell the council, with the EA saying it ran tests to find there was "no risk" to bathers.

The fracture occurred when several thousand tonnes of earth were tipped onto the pipework by contractors working on a planned solar farm development.

At a climate and environment scrutiny committee meeting, EA area manager Rachael Caldwell said advice not to bathe was relayed online once the sewage quantities being discharged became clear.

However, she said the advice was "precautionary" and analysis of water samples showed there was "no risk".

Councillor Sue Jeffrey, Labour, said: "Redcar is a tourist town and we depend on visitors being able to bathe in the water safely, and that alert did not happen early enough, even if we found out subsequently there was no danger."

She asked if there would be "sanctions" against Northumbrian Water and was told by Caldwell there was an ongoing investigation.

The council's assistant director of growth and enterprise, Andrew Carter, also said there was an "active discussion" about whether the council itself could be liable for any costs, because it owns the land where the pipe fracture happened.

The local authority granted planning permission for a solar farm project being overseen by a community interest company, Community Led Regeneration (CLR).

CLR said it "can confirm there has been no digging near the pipe at any time."

In a statement, Northumbrian Water said repairing the pipe was "difficult and complex", but it "immediately" told the Environment Agency it planned to release sewage into the sea.

"We were confident that because of the tidal nature at the location, and the fact that any spills would be heavily diluted with surface water, that there would be minimal impact to the wider environment or river area," it said.

"We set up a testing and monitoring programme to check this, and very quickly we were able to confirm that there had been no environmental impact to the wider area."

It added it was planning a "full replacement programme" of the pipe, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

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