Water firms and farms 'the worst polluters'

The agriculture and water industries were named yesterday as the two chief culprits in a report detailing levels of environmental pollution in Britain last year.

The Environment Agency reported a gradual overall reduction in air and water pollution by industry but warned that the downward trend had been bucked by "unacceptable" incidents. Some of the biggest water companies, including Anglian Water Services, Thames Water, United Utilities Water and Yorkshire Water were responsible for 11 per cent of all pollution incidents, according to the report on business environmental performance in 2001.

Last year the agency brought prosecutions against eight water companies, resulting in average fines of £38,000. United Utilities Water was the worst offender, incurring a total of £70,500 in fines for 12 offences.

In one of the worst individual cases, Dwr Cymru/Welsh Water was fined £3,500 and £19,836 costs after it was found guilty of killing tens of thousands of salmon and trout by polluting the river Teifi from a water treatment works near Pontrhydfendigaid.

Barbara Young, the agency's chief executive, said: "Most regulated emissions from industry continue to go down, and air and water quality continue to improve. But there really is no room for complacency.

"The increase in the number of serious pollution incidents affecting water bucks an encouraging trend of improve- ment over the past decade."

She added: "Contamination of water took many forms ­ noxious effluent, raw sewage, silt and oil ­ but these often had one single cause: management failure."

Agriculture accounted for seven per cent of pollution incidents to air, land and water in 2001, and 12 per cent of the most serious cases.

Small farms escaped being mentioned in the report, which only scrutinises company performance. In the worst case a large farm in Tuttington, Norfolk, was fined £10,000 for polluting a tributary of the river Bure with diesel and failing to report the incident to the Environment Agency.

The report also sought to highlight increasing concerns about pollution by "high street" companies, many of which are not directly regulated by the Environment Agency.

Baroness Young of Old Scone said: "It is not just the usual suspects who are being caught for environmental crimes ­ supermarkets, pubs, hotels and shoe manufacturers were all found guilty last year of serious environmental offences."

Tesco was fined a total of £37,518 after 197 of the store's abandoned trolleys were found in the rivers Cam and Chelmer. The chain had resisted an environmentally friendly coin-operated trolley system, which it has now implemented.

JJB Sports in Wigan was fined £14,000 for dumping wooden pallets, shoes and other JJB merchandise, which were then burnt by vandals, polluting the air. The report said most regulated air emissions, notably sulphur dioxide and volatile organic compounds, fell in 2001.