30-May-2006 - A restaurant
in Caxton Gibbett, Cambridgeshire seriously polluted
a local watercourse for a year despite warnings
from the Environment Agency and today (Tues) owner
Fook Yu Yeung was fined a total of £13,500
and ordered to pay full costs of £2,226
at Ely Magistrates’ Court.
Yeung is the owner of the Yim
Wah House Restaurant off the A428 near Cambridge
which has its own sewage treatment plant to treat
sewage and waste water produced by the restaurant.
Treated, cleaned water can be
discharged into a small ditch which runs in to
West Brook but the waste water that came from
the plant was not clean enough and it polluted
the ditch with high levels of pollution.
Six times between December 2004
and December 2005 when an Environment Agency officer
visited the restaurant there was grey, smelly
liquid in the ditch with a high ammonia content
and a high BOD. (See notes).
Yeung was verbally reminded
each time of his environmental responsibility
and follow-up letters re-iterated that and he
was warned that enforcement action could be taken.
Yeung’s daughter who manages
the restaurant said new parts were being fitted
to the treatment plant but the company which serviced
it said in a letter that in their opinion the
restaurant needed a different treatment plant.
The Environment Agency said
the breaches of the Discharge Consent were forseeable.
Yeung knew that the sewage treatment plant wasn’t
working properly but allowed the pollution to
continue.
A condition of the discharge
is that no more than 20mg/l of biochemical oxygen
demand (BOD), 10mg/l of ammonia and 40mg/l of
suspended solids should be present.
Tests of the watercourse showed
that BOD was between 115mg/l and 403mg/l, ammonia
was between 39.8mg/l and 50.3mg/l, and suspended
solids was between 63mg/l and 279mg/l.
Alternative action could have
been taken to prevent the continued polluting
discharge into the ditch, such as tankering the
effluent away for disposal.
Magistrates were told that Yeung
received a formal caution in 2004 for two offences
of causing polluting matter (sewage effluent)
to enter the ditch on 9 April and 7 May 2003 in
very similar circumstances.
After the hearing Environment
officer Claire Magee said: ‘The discharge from
Yim Wah House over the past year has been more
like raw sewage than properly treated waste water.
As a result the ditch has become grossly polluted
and extremely smelly. I hope today’s result makes
businesses aware that causing pollution in any
watercourse, including drainage ditches, is unacceptable.’
Magistrates told Yeung: ‘The
levels of contamination were dangerously above
the consent limit and even above the typical levels
of untreated sewage.’
Charges:
1. On or about 21 December 2004 at Yim Wah House
Restaurant, Ermine Street, Caxton Gibbet, Cambridgeshire,
you did breach the conditions of a Discharge Consent,
in that you discharged trade or sewage effluent
into controlled waters, namely a tributary of
West Brook, outside the parameters of your consent
conditions. Contrary to s.85(6) Water Resources
Act 1991. Fined £1,000.
2. On or about 3 June 2005 at
Yim Wah House Restaurant, Ermine Street, Caxton
Gibbet, Cambridgeshire, you did breach the conditions
of a Discharge Consent, in that you discharged
trade or sewage effluent into controlled waters,
namely a tributary of West Brook, outside the
parameters of your consent conditions. Contrary
to s.85(6) Water Resources Act 1991. Fined £1,500
3. On or about 22 July 2005
at Yim Wah House Restaurant, Ermine Street, Caxton
Gibbet, Cambridgeshire, you did breach the conditions
of a Discharge Consent, in that you discharged
trade or sewage effluent into controlled waters,
namely a tributary of West Brook, outside the
parameters of your consent conditions. Contrary
to s.85(6) Water Resources Act 1991. Fined £2,000
4. On or about 9 August 2005
at Yim Wah House Restaurant, Ermine Street, Caxton
Gibbet, Cambridgeshire, you did breach the conditions
of a Discharge Consent, in that you discharged
trade or sewage effluent into controlled waters,
namely a tributary of West Brook, outside the
parameters of your consent conditions. Contrary
to s.85(6) Water Resources Act 1991. Fined £2,500
5. On or about 6 September 2005
at Yim Wah House Restaurant, Ermine Street, Caxton
Gibbet, Cambridgeshire, you did breach the conditions
of a Discharge Consent, in that you discharged
trade or sewage effluent into controlled waters,
namely a tributary of West Brook, outside the
parameters of your consent conditions. Contrary
to s.85(6) Water Resources Act 1991. Fined £3,000
6. On or about 9 December 2005
at Yim Wah House Restaurant, Ermine Street, Caxton
Gibbet, Cambridgeshire, you did breach the conditions
of a Discharge Consent, in that you discharged
trade or sewage effluent into controlled waters,
namely a tributary of West Brook, outside the
parameters of your consent conditions. Contrary
to s.85(6) Water Resources Act 1991. Fined £3,500
Notes to Editors:
• BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) is a measurement
of the amount of oxygen removed from a watercourse
sample as an organic substance breaks down. The
higher the measurement, the more polluting its
effect on the watercourse.
