Thames Water has been fined £2 million after raw sewage polluted two Oxfordshire streams, killing almost 150 fish and flooding a nearby garden.
In December the Judge at Oxford Crown Court ruled the incident as a high end, category three harm offence.
Multiple failures in the management of a sewage pumping station operated by the Company led to sewage created by two villages emptying into two brooks leading to the River Evenlode, which leads into the River Thames, for up to 24 hours.
The Judge found Thames Water "reckless" in polluting Idbury and Littlestock brooks in August 2015.
Environment Agency officers discovered the entire local population of almost 150 bullhead fish had been killed by the toxic waste along a 50-metre stretch of water.
The Environment Agency received a public report of dead fish in Idbury brook, and a backlog of raw sewage was forced into the water from a sewer pipe that could not hold it. Sewage also escaped from a manhole and onto a residential front garden.
Court heard that Thames Water disregarded more than 800 high-priority alarms needing attention within four hours in the six weeks before the incident. Another 300 alarms were not properly investigated which would have pointed out failures with the pumping system. One alarm was deliberately deactivated.
The Environment Agency discovered that Thames Water were aware the pumping station failed several times in the 12 months up to and including the incident in August 2015. There had been repeated problems with the pumping station in the year before the pollution, which Thames Water failed to report to the Environment Agency.
The Environment Agency commented on this case, stating "this incident was foreseeable and avoidable. Thames Water didn't recognise the increased risk to the environment, ignoring or failing to respond adequately to more than 1,000 alarms".
"We hope this prosecution sends a loud and clear message that the Environment Agency will not accept poor operation, management and maintenance of sewage pumping stations. Where we have evidence of offending and serious pollution incidents like here, we will take appropriate action to bring polluters to justice".
Thames Water were ordered to pay full costs of £79,991.57. The company pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two charges of breaching environmental law.
