A WATER company apologised after releasing sewage into the sea for almost half an hour.

Southern Water yesterday admitted sewage spilt into the sea off the coast of Newhaven on Tuesday.

After a power failure at the company’s water treatment works in the town, waste spilled into the sea from a 2.4km offshore pipe.

The spillage began just after 10am and continued for 25 minutes.

Lewes District Council claimed it had not been aware of the incident until approached by The Argus.

He said: “We are now liaising with the Environment Agency.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Southern Water said an investigation had been launched into the incident.

But he claimed “computer modelling” confirmed no beaches were affected by pollution.

The spokesman said: “An investigation is under way into the incident and our regulators at the Environment Agency were informed.

“There was a 25-minute release on Tuesday through the 2.7 km long sea outfall at our Newhaven treatment works.

“No pollution is acceptable to our customers or to us and we apologise for this event.”

A spokesman for the Environment Agency said it was investigating the cause of the facility’s power failure.

It claimed there was “minimal environmental impact” to the location where the sewage was spilt.

“The Environment Agency received a notification at 12.43 on Tuesday stating a power failure had occurred at Newhaven wastewater treatment works,” he said.

“A discharge of screened and diluted sewage occurred for 25 minutes between 10.08 and 10.33.

“This discharged out the long sea outfall, located 2.4 km offshore.”

The spillage was the second from a Southern Water facility in a month after an incident in July saw two beaches shut.

That spill had also been caused by a power failure at the company’s water treatment facility in Eastbourne.

Beaches in the town and Pevensey Bay were closed because of health concerns for swimmers.

The incidents marked another bad patch for Southern Water, which has been mired in controversy this year.

First the company announced up to 200 redundancies in its customer service team in June.

Staff were told their jobs would be outsourced to Rotherham in Yorkshire and Bangalore in India.

Then in the same month the company agreed to pay a £126 million fine to Government regulator Ofwat after a series of “serious failures”.

The water company watchdog said its large-scale investigation found Southern Water failed to operate a number of sewage treatments works properly.

This included not making the necessary investment, which led to equipment failures and spills of wastewater into the environment, and misreporting information.