Welsh water was fined £1.35 million for failing to properly monitor the water quality in 300 different locations.

The company pleaded guilty to more than 800 crimes in 2020 and 2021.

It blames the failure on restructuring and implementing new systems in conjunction with the Covid pandemic.

Magistrate Gwyn Jones concluded that the company had been negligent, “there is no doubt that all the dedicated personnel in DWR Cymru have caused an embarrassment.”

Since 2010, DWR Cymru Welsh Water has been legally responsible for monitoring the water quality of its treatment plants and submitting its results to regulator Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

After receiving the 2020 annual report, NRW officials said they were shocked to find that the quality of the information provided was significantly worse than in previous years, as 676 crimes occurred in 2020 and 142 more violations in 2021.

They are all involved in breach of environmental license permits because samples are not taken in a timely manner, or incomplete or not submitted at all.

This means that any potential damage to water quality, wildlife and other amenities is not well known.

Bodedern, Llanfair PG, Pwllheli, Bethesda, Rhuddlan, Mold, Queensferry, Ardudwy Valley, Elan Valley, Elan Valley, Aberystwyth, Llandrindod Wells, Gowerton and Cardiff.

"There should be plans that have been put into place to ensure that the company performs its legal responsibilities in reorganization to comply with the license," NRW said.

The court heard that NRW expressed concerns about the information presented by Welsh Water for the company, but in many cases it received no response.

Welsh Water believes that the number of crimes in the total number of samples collected during this period is small, with the vast majority of which are correctly recorded.

It says it is now almost 100% in line with its statutory obligations.

Judge Jones said no advice was intentionally concealed illegal activities.

He said Welsh Water is a massive organization and the crime took place during the difficult operation of the Alliance pandemic.

But the effectiveness and accuracy of reporting “destroy” the self-report system is lacking.

"It's a big scale," Judge Jones said.

Mr Jones said the new self-report regime introduced after internal reorganizations within the Welsh water has not been stress-tested.

Welsh water was fined £90,000 for each of the 15 specimens that had pleaded guilty, totaling £1.35 million.

The company was ordered to pay a fee of £70,237.

A Welsh Water spokesman said it had a “compliance record” with monitoring obligations before and after 2020-21, but there were a number of factors that affected its work, including the pandemic.

"Nevertheless, we meet our monitoring requirements, involving more than 18,000 tests per year, 98.95% in 2020 and 99.45% in 2021," they said.

“The surveillance failure represents a few examples of a plan involving tens of thousands of submissions.”

They said that during the 2020-21 period, no locations were not under surveillance and “no” environmental harm was found, but they acknowledged insufficient compliance.

They added: “Welsh Water will continue to work closely with our regulators to ensure we provide two main priorities, namely the best service to our customers and protect the environment.”