Firm is fined for polluting brook after dam breach

A Sandbach-based clay company was fined last week, after soil from one of its quarry sites polluted a small stream near Plymouth. Sibelco UK, of Congleton Road, pleaded guilty to two offences of polluting Smallhanger Brook, after contaminated soil ran from land where the company had been extending quarrying operations.
The case was brought by the Environment Agency and was heard at Plymouth Magistrates court last Tuesday.
The court heard that on 7th July last year, a number of people had contacted the Environment Agency to report that the brook was heavily discoloured. Rising at Crownhill Down, the brook passes through the hamlet of Drakeland Corner, just outside the Dartmoor National Park. The pollution was traced to an area on Crownhill Down, near Cornwood, where the china clay company had stripped grass and topsoil from a large area of Moorland, prior to extending its quarrying operations. Heavy rain had caused surface water on the exposed area of land to be contaminated and run off into the headwaters of the Smallhanger Brook, causing the discolouration
It was heard that once Sibelco was made aware of the problem, the company took immediate action and constructed a bund (dam) around the site to contain flows. However on 14th July, the agency received further reports of discolouration in the brook and when an officer returned to inspect the site, he saw that the bund had been breached and the stream was again contaminated with sediment. The agency said anyone undertaking major engineering works must provide adequate containment to ensure that nearby watercourses are not polluted.
Agency spokesman Jon Snowden said: "There were no pollution prevention measures in place to try and reduce the environmental impact of potentially harmful run-off from this site. "Sediment entering watercourses blankets the riverbed and clogs the gills of fish and other aquatic life." The company told the court that the pollution had partly resulted from its efforts to protect certain rare species at the recently cleared site at Crownhill Down.
It had been told by ecologists and conservationists to avoid disrupting flows of water from the site to protect mosses and other species that thrived in damp conditions. The firm was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £3,210 costs.

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