Waste treatment plant owner fined for obstructing the Environment Agency
An owner of a waste treatment plant in Barking barred inspectors from the site unless they handed over thousands of pounds in bogus fees.
In February 2023, an Environment Agency officer attended Keep Green Ltd’s premises. This visit was undertaken to check operations were within the conditions of the environmental permit to treat household, commercial and industrial waste and that pollution-control measures were in place. The Environment Agency was concerned about the amount of waste stored at the site on the banks of the Thames since the last visual check six months before.
The owner stopped the officer from entering the premises and demanded £500 and insurance documents from the officer to let them in. Environment Agency staff have powers of entry to visit and inspect any location that holds a permit to operate and do not pay sites they regulate. Refusal to let inspections take place is a criminal offence.
The owner stated their refusal to allow the inspection without payment in a handwritten note. This note included the word “malfeasance,” but didn’t elaborate when challenged by the official if an allegation was being made.
The officer left, having explained to the owner why they were there, but the owner would not listen or look at the officer’s authorisation card, which listed her powers as an Environment Agency member of staff.
The Environment Agency’s investigation into the waste operation at the premises continues, although the permit to treat waste there is now held by a third party.
The owner later made a number of unsubstantiated claims about the officer in writing, saying that they had abused their position and lied about being denied access. When asked to follow-up the allegations in detail by the Environment Agency, the owner failed to do so.
The officer went back to the premises with a colleague two months later, in April 2023, but the owner again denied them entry to her business and demanded money. Following the second visit, the owner invoiced the Environment Agency for £1,500 for “an inspection fee” and what was called “written descriptions.” The Environment Agency doesn’t pay any operator whose site it regulates.
Breach
The owner was charged in absentia for breaching Section 110(1) and Section 110(4)(b) of the Environment Act 1995:
- Section 110(1) makes it an offence to intentionally obstruct authorised persons exercising or performing their powers or duties.
- Section 110(4)(b) sets fines applicable for offences under the subsection above.
Penalty
The owner was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay £3,000 in costs plus a victim surcharge of £1,200.
Waste transport company fined for liquid cyanide leak
A waste transport company has been prosecuting for causing liquid cyanide to leak from a lorry at an industrial estate in Heanor, Derbyshire.
The company had previously pleaded guilty to the charge of causing an illegal water discharge. It prompted the Fire Service to set up decontamination protocols and caused hundreds of fish deaths in a nearby pond.
On 6 February 2018, a container was ruptured as the driver started moving them around, having borrowed a forklift truck. Hundreds of litres of liquid, which contained diluted cyanide, escaped onto the floor before entering the drainage system and watercourses. The Fire Service was called and cordoned off the area, setting up decontamination protocols to ensure anyone involved in the incident was fully washed down. Environment Agency officers were also called and tried to stop the flow of water from nearby ponds.
Samples taken by the Environment Agency from dead fish found that of the 73 sent for testing, all had died from cyanide poisoning. The Environment Agency estimated that their clear up costs were in the region of £50,000.
J & G Environmental are contractors offering waste collection and disposal to the printing, photographic and healthcare industry. On the day of the incident, the company had collected the waste liquid from the Rolls Royce base before the lorry went onto Heanor.
Penalty
J & G Environmental Ltd was fined £16,000 and ordered to pay costs of £52,500.
Severn Trent Water fined £2 million for ‘reckless’ pollution.
Severn Trent Water has been fined for allowing approximately 470 million litres of raw sewage to discharge into the River Trent from Strongford Wastewater Treatment Works (WTW) near Stoke-on-Trent between November 2019 and February 2020. Of the 470 million litres discharged, approximately 260 million litres were discharged illegally in contravention of the WTW’s environmental permit.
On 14 February 2020, the Environment Agency received a report from Severn Trent Water that there was an issue with the screw pumps at the inlet to Strongford WTW. This stated that two of the three pumps had failed, causing crude sewage to go to the storm overflow and from there into the River Trent.
It became apparent that one of the screw pumps had previously failed back in December 2019 due to a gear box malfunction and a replacement was in the process of being made in Germany as there was no supplier in the UK.
Flow to Full Treatment (FFT) (the level of sewage and rain, or flow, that a sewage treatment works must treat before it is permitted to discharge) limits had been altered manually by staff at Strongford WTW, with the full knowledge of the site manager. This was evidenced within Severn Trent Water’s own logbooks and had been happening for some time. This was a breach of the environmental permit and changes to the FFT limits were recorded on 18 different dates between November 2019 to February 2020.
A second pump failed on 14 February 2020, again due to an issue with the gearbox. This meant that there was only one functioning pump and this couldn’t cope with any increases in rainfall, which caused sewage to prematurely overflow into the river. During the incident approximately 700–1000 litres per second of untreated sewage was discharged.
Fortunately, levels in the river were high due to Storm Ciara and as a result the impact was reduced. A similar pollution incident at a downstream pumping station had previously led to a major fish kill.
It took five days for the site to come back into compliance as an emergency pump had to be sent from Holland.
Penalty
Severn Trent Water was fined £1,072,000 and £1,000,000 plus costs of £16,476.67 and a victim’s surcharge of £181.
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