North Yorkshire Farming business enters into enforcement undertaking following waste offence
A York-based business that produces frozen vegetables has offered to pay a five-figure sum to the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust after spreading waste sludge on land illegally.
Since March 2016, the company had held a permit for spreading its own waste on its land. It operates an anaerobic digestion plant on site that produces a proportion of the company’s energy. It is the waste sludge from the anaerobic digestion plant that the company spreads on land.
Under the conditions of the permit, the company must make an application each time it wishes to spread waste, to say where it intends to spread waste, what type of waste, how much and when. Every application must also include evidence to show that there is an agricultural benefit from the spreading of waste. The Environment Agency then considers each application and decides if there is agricultural benefit and whether it can go ahead.
Records showed that spreading took place every year from 2013 to 2021 in varying quantities from 2,664 tonnes to as much as 10,530 tonnes. However, only four applications for spreading were made during this period and all were refused, needing additional information. The company was found not to have permission for spreading between March 2016 and February 2022. The company avoided paying application fees which ranged from £760 to £1,718 each time the sludge was spread.
Enforcement Undertaking
The company, J E Hartley Limited, submitted an Enforcement Undertaking to the Environment Agency. An Enforcement Undertaking is a voluntary offer made by companies and individuals to make amends for their offending.
The enforcement undertaking consisted of a payment of £23,640 to the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust. The offer from JE Hartley Limited also outlined that it will revise its land spreading procedures and would not spread without permissions in place and would cover the Environment Agency’s costs.
The Environment Agency accepted the undertaking. No environmental harm has been identified from the spreading.
United Utilities fined for abstracting excessive quantities of water
United Utilities Water Limited has been fined after illegally abstracting 22 billion litres of water from boreholes in Lancashire.
The over abstraction caused additional stress on the environment during a period of very dry weather in 2018 and led to a significant decline in the water level available in the Fylde Aquifer. The aquifer, which helps to support healthy river flows and is an important public water source, will take years to recover.
The case follows an investigation by the Environment Agency that found United Utilities had taken more water than allowed by five of their abstraction licences in the Franklaw and Broughton Borehole Complex.
Penalty
United Utilities Water Limited was fined £800,000.
Suspended sentence for owner of illegal skip hire business
The owner of a skip-hire company in north Kent has been convicted of illegally handling waste on the banks of the River Thames.
The company, Selbys Ltd, was found to have taken in construction, demolition and household waste in rented premises in the Darent Industrial Estate for 11 months across 2021 and 2022. Another of the man’s company’s, M&R Skip Hire, held an environmental permit on the site before being wound up. An earlier suspension notice served on M&R Skip Hire for environmental concerns had the site on the Environment Agency’s radar.
Environment Agency officers later found out Selbys Ltd, the new firm, was touting for custom on Facebook, with the advert falsely claiming the business was legitimate. After believing waste was being handled illegally on the industrial estate in late 2020, investigators made a series of visits to confirm their suspicions. Officers found the site stacked with large piles of waste like wood and plastic, along with a significant amount of crushed waste, known as trommel fines.
The size of the piled waste at the site had caused the aggregate to spill over onto the adjoining flood defence. The Environment Agency later said the weight of the waste on the embankment could have meant a ‘realistic risk’ of it failing, that might have led to evacuation of the entire industrial estate in the event of a flood. The defence provided flood protection from the rivers Thames and Darent that ran alongside the industrial units.
Officers also found evidence Selbys was burning waste. In February 2022, some of the waste caught fire by itself, leading to London Fire Brigade spending a day putting the flames out. In the same month, investigators gained a restriction order from a court that closed the site, based on their concerns about the environmental damage the business was causing through excess dust, and worries about the fire-risk and damage to the flood defence.
Breaches
The man admitted to breaching Regulation 12(1) and Regulation 38(1) to Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016:
- Regulation 12(1) prohibits persons from operating regulated facilities, water discharge activities or groundwater activities except under and in accordance with an environmental permit.
- Regulation 38(1) makes it an offence to contravene Regulation 12(1) or to knowingly cause or knowingly permit this contravention.
Penalty
The man was sentenced to 8 months in prison, suspended for 18 months, 60 hours of unpaid work and a victim surcharge of £156.
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