A water company that tried to keep secret details of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of raw sewage discharges into the sea has been ordered by an appeal tribunal to release the data in the public interest. Northumbrian Water has repeatedly refused to release details about the scale of raw sewage discharges into the North Sea from an outflow at its pumping station in Whitburn, after a campaigner asked under freedom of information and environmental information regulations. Campaigners say the pollution has been going on for years, but the Environment Agency, Northumbrian Water and the government all dispute their findings. In 2012 the European court of justice ruled the sewage discharges at Whitburn put the UK in breach of its legal obligations to treat wastewater and gave the government five years to remedy the situation. Related: Raw sewage discharged into Chichester harbour for over 1,200 hours in a month Steve Lavelle, the vice-chair of the neighbourhood forum in Whitburn, south Tyneside, has been investigating the scale of raw sewage discharges in an attempt to show the pollution is continuing many years after the ECJ ruling. Lavelle said: “We need this information to show this pollution is still going on. We...