New offences this month:
Southern Water fined after waste water treatment permit breaches
Southern Water has been fined after it exceeded emissions limits on discharges between July 2013 and July 2014.
The court heard that Southern Water had failed to remain within emissions limits in its environmental permit for Tunbridge Wells North waste water treatment works. The site discharges to the Somerhill Stream.
Breach
Southern Water pleaded guilty to breaching the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2010.
Penalty
Southern Water has been fined £24,000 and agreed to pay costs of £33,218.
In mitigation, Southern Water stated that they had already spent £360,000 on improvement to the treatment works and a further £6 million was planned.
Hampshire waste criminal receives prison sentence
A repeat offender with previous waste crime convictions has been sentenced after he pleaded guilty to five offences. Marcus Bairstow’s offences include:
- Forcing entry to farmland and dumping waste near Rownhams;
- Fly tipping waste in a public house car park in February 2015;
- Fires at a site in Eastleigh operated by the offender, including an incident that set fire to timber in an adjacent unit;
The offender was also exposed by the BBC’s Rogue Traders programme which bugged and tracked waste and filmed Bairstow dumping it.
Penalty
Mr Bairstow was sentenced to 30 weeks imprisonment and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £150.
Composting site operator fined £50,000 after breaching its permit
A court has fined AmeyCespa after it was found the company had failed to appropriately manage a Cambridge-based compositing facility to prevent the release of odours.
An employee working at premises nearby was suddenly sick at work in July 2014. The court heard that the employer nearby suffered an increased rate of sickness absence and eventually relocated.
The company admitted to breaching its permit, in that they failed to ensure emissions from the facility were free from odours at levels likely to cause annoyance outside the site. The company also admitted it had failed to use appropriate measures to prevent or where that is not practicable, to minimise, the odour.
AmeyCespa subsequently received three enforcement notices, requiring that action was taken to comply with the site’s permit. Two notices were discharged by June 2015 and the final notice was completed in December 2015.
Breach
The site operator was found guilty of breaching Regulation 38(2) Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
Regulation 38(2) makes it an offence for a person to fail to comply with or to contravene an environmental permit condition.
Penalty
The site operator was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay £13,336 costs.
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