Pollution fine for farm

A farming and vegetable packing business has been fined £20,000 for a second oil pollution incident.

A worker at the farm had pumped  rainwater from a bund surrounding a diesel tank onto farmland, not knowing that the tank was damaged and that some of its contents had leaked into the bund.        

The contaminated water found its way into a nearby watercourse and then Rainworth Water and Rufford Abbey Country Park lake, a public recreation and wildlife area.

A similar event 18 months previously involving a pump caused serious diesel oil pollution of the same lakes.  The pump was unsecured and lacked proper protection against misuse.  Magistrates fined the company £12,000 with £3,120 costs on that occasion.

The two incidents show how vital it is that businesses storing and using dangerous substances take appropriate steps to prevent pollution.  It is particularly important to ensure that robust inspection procedures are in place for bunds and other forms of secondary containment, and for testing rainwater collected in bunds before release to sewer, surface water or groundwater to make sure it is not contaminated.

A legal precedent dating back to the 1860s, known as the Rylands and Fletcher Rule, confers strict liability on organisations where there is an escape from land of something which is not naturally there: "a person, who for his own purposes brings onto his land and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it at his peril, and.....is answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape."  The Rule has been called into question several times since, and has been amended so that it must be demonstrated that the escape was "reasonably foreseeable".  Obviously, in the case of a business that stores red diesel or any other polluting substance on its property, these would not naturally exist there and it is reasonably foreseeable that an escape to the environment could occur.

In this, and the previous case of pollution at the Strawson Limited farm, the company was prosecuted under Section 85 of the Water Resources Act 1991 for "knowingly causing or knowingly permitting polluting matter to enter a controlled water."

Need help devising and implementing a programme for inspecting tanks and bunds at your site, or the development of procedures to control spillage risks?  Call us for a no-obligation discussion on 0845 123 2544.  We can also provide advice and guidance on "winterisation" to help ensure that you don't fall foul of snow and colder temperatures over the winter months.