A mass of disgusting-smelling 'raw sewage' spotted floating in the River Mersey was not caused by a water company pumping waste into the water.
United Utilities (UU) denied all responsibility for waste found in the water at Otterspool at the end of August, and blamed the pollution on a temporary caravan site and a factory illegally dumping waste into the water.
An investigation carried out by the Environment Agency has now confirmed that the company was not to blame.
READ MORE: United Utilities blame caravan site and factory waste for sewage in Mersey River
However, the actual source of the pollution could not be determined.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We carried out an investigation into a report of pollution in the River Mersey at Otterspool, which included a review of United Utilities' assets. This found that none of their assets had discharged during this time and they were subsequently ruled out as a source.
"While there was not enough evidence available to establish the source, this appears to have been a one-off discharge into the river which cleared quickly and had no long term impact on the environment.”
Throughout August, around 100 beaches in England were hit by raw sewage discharges last month, sparking national outcry.
A United Utilites spokesman said at the time: " An immediate and thorough investigation found no issues at any of our assets in the vicinity of the pollution. We did, however, find evidence that toilet and other waste had been thrown directly into the river where a temporary caravan site had been set up on Otterspool Promenade.
"A second pollution incident on the same weekend further downstream at Widnes is, again, unrelated to UU."
They said: “As we said at the time, we carried out an immediate and thorough investigation which confirmed that the pollution was not caused by any of our operations.”
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