PIPE LINENOT JUST SURFERS * NOT JUST SEWAGE * THE NEWSLETTER OF SAS CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF SAS ISSUE 60 * MAY 2005 MAY * * It’s Judgement Day for Green Courts * 2005 SAS Ball to be Crystal * SAS Education Projects with O’Neill and Quiksilver take off WHO’S WHO AT SAS? HOW TO FIND US... editorial ■ Campaign Director (full time) Richard Hardy ([email protected]) ■ Campaign Assistant (full time) Andy Cummins ([email protected]) WOW! 15 years of SAS! It seems like it ■ Campaign Researcher (full time) Andrew Knights ([email protected]) was only yesterday I first saw the images ■ Office Manager (full time) Wendy Nicolson ([email protected]) of gas masked surfers take their sand-coated ■ Finance Manager (part time) Vincent McDermott ([email protected]) booties off the beach and into the corridors ■ Events & Sponsorship (part time) Michelle England ([email protected]) of power to challenge the law makers, the ■ Merchandise Manager (part time) Kate Wilde ([email protected]) ■ Merchandise Assistant (part time) Heidi Peasley ([email protected]) water industry and the tourist bodies to get ■ Sales/Admin assistant (full time) Claire Bentley ([email protected]) behind a campaign to stop pumping untreated ■ Everyone can be contacted on 0845 4583001 shit into the sea! Whilst a lot has changed in those 15 years, mostly through campaign The original SAS office...a little overgrown but success and making the water cleaner, little still lived in and given an SSSI (Site of Special Surfer Interest) preservation order from us! WHO DOES WHAT FOR PIPELINE has changed in the style of campaigning we ■ Editor: Richard Hardy ■ Surfers Against Sewage, use to secure even more improvements to the Wheal Kitty Workshops, St. Agnes, Cornwall TR5 0RD water we use for pleasure. We still use the provide them with additional income!). Sadly we ■ Hotline: 0845 458 3001 ■ Fax: 01872 552 615 same local grassroots based campaigning tactics still have much to do as we learn more about ■ Internet: www.sas.org.uk ■ Email: [email protected] (with a splash of humour) but the stage is harmful chemicals, more about the impacts ■ Graphic Design: Greig Stevens [email protected] bigger, we still use the trademark gas masked of climate change, more about radioactive ■ Photographers: Andy Cummins, Richard Hardy, surfer image but with new props and on new discharge, more about hazardous shipping and Mike Greenslade, Richard Gregory, Ester Spears ■ Printing: Brewers of Helston 01326 558000 issues of concern to water users, we still build more about litter - all of which have the ■ Pipeline sponsored by The Cornwall Paper Company all our campaigns on the back of sustainable potential to wreck a perfect session. Anyway 01209 212294 science based solutions and we still only ask thanks for your own contribution over the 15 you to give us your support once a year years and check out what the ex campaign Printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper through your membership (no gimmicky appeals director’s have to say in a trip down memory using vegetable based inks that mainstream NGO’s tend to overuse to lane on pages 13 and 16. RICH HARDY PIPELINE.ISSUE.60.PAGES.02/03 SPONSORED BY THE CORNWALL PAPER COMPANY - THE SPECIALISTS IN RECYCLING CAMPAIGN REPORT and he says that during these court cases Southern Water say quite candidly to the magistrate that they have always succeeded in getting a reduction on appeal. It is often unclear as to why the fines have been reduced other than the perception of judges in being able to fit a true cost to the fine. ‘GREEN’ JUDGES This is primarily because they don’t know how much to fine in LAUNCH CAMPAIGN TO KICKSTART relation to the crimes they normally deal with. ENVIRONMENTAL COURTS A new legal framework to ensure repeat environmental offenders ‘improve their environmental performance rather In February we launched a campaign that called for than their fine reductions’ is desperately needed. ‘Green’ or Environmental Courts to be used across the UK to deal more Environmental Courts would be a great addition to the UK effectively with environmental crimes. legal system and are already operating successfully within A group of ‘green judges’ from SAS wearing green robes, the EU. green face paint and armed with gavels, prepared to put a CAMPAIGN ACTION: There is talk of an ‘Environmental Justice true price on the cost of pollution, kick-starting the campaign Bill that may take some of this into account but to help us outside Camborne Magistrates Court in Cornwall. Local water secure the ‘Green Judges’ we’d like, please complete and post company South West Water were due in the Magistrates Court the enclosed campaign action postcard to the Environment to face charges relating to a breach of their discharge consent Minister Elliot Morley as soon as you receive this edition of for Tregaseal (St Just) Sewage Treatment Works. It was their Pipeline. Thanks! RH first prosecution of the year. Media Coverage: Western Morning News, West Briton, The SAS would like to see the UK adopt a system similar to one Packet, BBC Radio Cornwall, The Surfers Path. already in practice in Sweden where Regional Environmental Courts put legally qualified judges together with environmental advisors to adjudicate over cases. New Zealand also runs a WATER COMPANY PROSECUTION LEAGUE similar court network to ensure environmental crimes are Celebrity support from ‘The Hulk’ accounted for properly. COMPANY OFFENCES OFFENCES FINES £ FINES £ LEGAL COSTS £ LEGAL COSTS £ The current system at home is failing, with penalties far too low to act as a deterrent for big business environmental generated from the original prosecution and so such actions 2004 2003 2004 2003 2004 2003 offenders, particularly those who are branded repeat by water companies go unreported and therefore unnoticed offenders such as water companies. Compounded by a lack by the general public. 1 Southern 14 10 90,500 73,200 19,023 16,248 of experience by magistrates and judges in quantifying By the end of 2004 South West Water had been in the dock 2 Scottish 13 14 50,000 40,000 0 0 environmental offences many water companies have now 13 times (3 offences more than in 2003) for pollution offences. 3 South West 13 10 60,400 41,000 13,200 6,113 taken to appealing against their original fines with great It’s a statistic that is mirrored across the water industry with 4 United Utilities 12 9 56,200 48,500 9,029 9,471 success. Last year, South West Water obtained the largest an overall increase of 26%. The average fine was a meagre 5 Welsh 10 6 9,250 16,250 4,863 5,636 reduction, after it was fined £15,000 for polluting the sea £4640 for South West Water. 6 Thames 9 6 132,500 60,000 42,013 18,004 at the North Cliffs. The incident followed a problem with the Thames Water’s Managing Director John Sexton recently 7 Yorkshire 8 0 33,900 0 10,243 7,176 Kieve Mills sewage treatment works, which had left a plume agreed that the £70,000 they were fined in 2003 for pollution 8 Anglian 3 3 50,905 47,500 10,348 0 of sewage solids visible from the coast path. After appeal the incidents was “not a deterrent” given his company’s £1 billion 9 Wessex 3 3 14,000 15,000 3,655 3,102 fine was reduced to just £3000. Indeed recent appeals by the turnover. This was obviously true as fines for Thames Water 10 Northumbrian 1 6 2,000 25,500 846 3,573 water industry have seen an average reduction in the fine soared to £132,500 in 2004. 11 Severn Trent 1 2 5,000 5,000 2,000 4,236 on appeal, of £5800. Successful appeals such as these are An Environment Agency spokesman has also recently setting precedents, which are likely to limit the size of fines expressed his concern on the issue in relation to Southern TOTAL 87 69 504,655 371,950 115,220 73,559 in future. Also the appeals rarely receive the media coverage Water. He has faced 8 appeals from the company since 1990 PIPELINE.ISSUE.60.PAGES.04/05 SPONSORED BY THE CORNWALL PAPER COMPANY - THE SPECIALISTS IN RECYCLING CAMPAIGN REPORT like Newquay, Scarborough, Weymouth, Swanage, Poole and Weston-super-Mare, who treat sewage properly before discharge to sea, to be more attractive resorts to visit for BRIGHTON holidaymakers, day-trippers and water users in the future. Not only is the level of sewage treatment to fall short of current expectations but also Southern Water’s proposal is ACTION likely to cost the region dearly as it wastes water rather than reuses it. At a time when the region already suffers water TARGETS COUNCIL LEADERS shortages and with more uncertainty over the availability of TO WIN SUPPORT FOR FULL water from climate change predictions, a fully treated sewage SEWAGE TREATMENT plant would allow for treated effluent to be reused and would help offset this. Campaigners from SAS Whilst the issue of ‘treatment level’ is not deemed a material joined local activists in planning concern it is should be of very great concern for Brighton during March to Brighton’s council leaders, residents, water users, businesses, urge Council leaders to get hoteliers and tourist officials as Brighton’s reputation as a behind a policy of treating hip, alternative, environmentally conscious, right on, tourist sewage properly before it’s friendly city could soon be eclipsed by less hip resorts that discharged to sea view clean and safe water as the foundation from which they are building a healthy, clean and sustainable environment off Brighton upon.