YORKSHIRE Water has denied misleading environment bosses over the dumping of untreated sewage into the River Wharfe upstream of Tadcaster.

An investigation by BBC Panorama found that water companies have been illegally allowing untreated sewage to go into rivers in England and Wales.

It said treatment works were allowed to release sewage into rivers and streams after extreme weather, such as torrential rain, and when they were operating close to full capacity, to protect properties from flooding and prevent sewage from backing up into streets and homes.

It said discharge permits issued by the Environment Agency specified the level of sewage each works had to treat before it could dump untreated sewage, but data analysed by the programme showed some companies had regularly breached permit conditions.

The investigators said that at the Wetherby treatment works run by Yorkshire Water, footage shot by a local campaigner had shown the works dumping untreated sewage into the Wharfe on several occasions last year.

But they found that Yorkshire Water failed to report any of these spills to the Environment Agency, with its annual filing showing no sewage dumping at all at Wetherby.

But the company said yesterday there had been a ‘single data anomaly’ within 2,000 monitoring points across Yorkshire.

A spokesperson said it was committed to further improving the environmental performance of its wastewater assets and pollution in rivers was not something it wanted.

“The BBC’s panorama programme highlighted a legacy of the nation’s infrastructure that the industry is working hard to improve,” they said.

“We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously and we know that intermittent discharges are a challenge for regulators and the sector alike – as an industry we are investing more than a billion pounds over the next five years to begin to tackle the issue.

“During last night’s programme, data sets concerning Wetherby treatment works were highlighted, and allegations made that untreated sewage was discharged into the River Wharfe on some occasions last year, without being reported to the Environment Agency.

“This is a single data anomaly within 2,000 monitoring points across Yorkshire and we will be investigating the allegations of potential unpermitted discharges. If it’s found that there has been an unpermitted discharge, it will be reported to the Environment Agency immediately.”