06/10/2005 - A cheese manufacturer
from North Devon was today ordered to pay
£1,619 in fines and costs for polluting
a stream in a case brought by the Environment
Agency.
A court heard that, on January 25, 2005,
the Dipple Water, a tributary of the River
Torridge, was polluted with liquid waste.
The liquid was running from the dirty water
irrigation system at Higher Alminstone Farm
at Woolsery near Bideford.
Parkham Farms Limited produces cheese on
the site and has a licence to spread dairy
waste on to the land where, normally, it is
absorbed into the soil. The company did this
by spraying it onto the fields from a mobile
irrigator.
On the day of the offence the ground was
so hard and compacted the earth failed to
absorb the liquid. White effluent ran down
the field and pooled in one corner, then overflowed
into the stream. The liquid was also seen
collecting in hollows in the ground, clearly
unable to soak in.
The stream at Alminstone Cross ran white
with the surplus effluent. There was also
sewage fungus on bottom of the stream for
around 800 metres, which showed there had
been a problem for some time.
‘This pollution was caused by poor management
of a dirty water system. It could have been
avoided had there been adequate supervision,’
said Philip Siddall for the Environment Agency.
‘Parkham Farms prides itself on its reputation
in the organic market. The company imports
around 35 million litres of milk a year from
around 28 farms and disposes of waste to land
at Higher Alminstone and Burnstone Farms.
The alternative to spreading on land is more
costly treatment on site or taking the waste
away by tanker to a licensed treatment facility.’
Parkham Farms Limited, which has a registered
office at St John’s House, Castle Street,
Taunton, was fined £500 by Barnstaple
magistrates and ordered to pay £1,119
costs after pleading guilty to an offence
under the Water Resources Act 1991 of permitting
poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, namely
effluent from a cheese factory, to enter a
tributary of the Dipple Water at Alminstone
Cross, Woolsery, Bideford.
The Environment Agency’s free 24 hour hotline
for reporting pollution is 0800 80 70 60.
