Water company prosecuted for illegal discharge

Some lines of this story really stick out such as:
Samples are taken 12 times a year

That's all? Since the water company has continuous monitoring equipment (which it failed to install on the relevant tank in this story) why hasn't the EA? The way this system is structured, the water company is both poacher and gamekeeper.

Wessex Water Services Limited, of Claverton Down Road, Claverton Down, Bath, was fined ?6,000 and ordered to pay ?978 costs

That's just pathetic. Pocket money to WW: in 2005, it made ?52 million, its directors divvied up ?562,000 between themselves, and awarded themselves a nice ?148,000 bonus - a 16% increase on the previous year's.

At the price WW paid, it would be cheaper to pollute and pay the fine than install propoer monitoring systems.

Mark,

I could tell you a lot about Water Companies and how they conduct their business because of my job.

They don't care one iota about the conservation of the water resources. They will scrimp and use false ecomony to show a few more quid on their bottom line.

Yet they can afford to put in the very best equipment to prevent this sort of thing ever happening.

Mark this is the point I was driving at in this thread of Ian's
http://www.fishingmagic.com/forum/forummessages/mps/dt/4/UTN/25882/V/9/SP/

About 3 years ago the EA changed the regulations to self-policing for WCs.

Prior to that the EA did the sampling in unannounced spot checks. Now the WCs do it through continuous monitoring with equipment they pay for and calibrate based on the spec the EA give them.
Spot checks by the EA are virtually unheard of now!

Brigand?s Charter, perhaps?

It's a disgrace. The judges have to weigh up the negligence of the WCs (such an appropriate acronym) you'd hope, and fine accordingly.

People make mistakes, and what they do to rectify them has to be taken into account.

But from the story, the WC sounds, well, just negligent in all departments. It should have been fined tens of thousands. In the context of 'polluting' merely the visual aspect of a village by putting up a conservatory without planning you'd be fined more than that.