Dave Ferguson - 22-Jan-2007 - A housing association has been fined £14,000 after admitting polluting a river with heating oil at one location and breaching its consent to discharge treated sewage effluent in another.

Cottsway Housing Association Ltd, of Witney, pleaded guilty on 19 January to one offence of polluting the River Dorn in Oxfordshire on a day between 5 and 21 September 2005 contrary to Section 85 (1) of the Water Resources Act 1991.

The association also pleaded guilty to five offences of breaching its consent to discharge treated sewage effluent into the Langford Brook in Oxfordshire between 28 September 2005 and 28 April 2006 contrary to Section 85(6) of the Water Resources Act 1991.

Bicester Magistrates' Court fined the company £2,000 for each of the five offences of breaching its consent to discharge and a further £4,000 for the oil pollution amounting to £14,000 and ordered it to pay costs of £3,087.

The court heard that the Environment Agency received several telephone calls from concerned members of the public on 15 September 2005 reporting a strong smell of fuel and a large film of oil on the surface of the River Dorn at Mill Lane, Middle Barton.

Environment Agency arrived at the site the same afternoon and found a thick film of oil on the river near Mill Lane and noted a strong smell of fuel in the air.

In trying to trace the source of the oil leak, the officers accompanied a local landowner across his land and discovered the fuel appeared to be discharging into the river, from a land drain situated in a field adjacent to Holliers Farm.

To try to prevent the spread of the oil downstream, the officers placed absorbent booms across the river at the ford in Mill Lane. Within the next few days the booms had collected a thick layer of oil and as they were saturated, the Environment Agency emergency work force attended the site to replace them.

Subsequently officers traced the spill to its source, an oil tank in the rear garden of a property in Jervis Close, Middle Barton, which was owned and managed by Cottsway Housing Association.

Officers then spoke to the company and asked for measures to be taken to stop the source of the leak.

The tenant of the house had made a report regarding the leaking tank on the 5 September 2005, which was followed by further reports of the leakage on the 11 and 12 September.

An engineer attended the site following the later reports but failed to stop the leak. It was only stopped when he returned to the property on 20 September to cut and disconnect the fuel line.

Karen Roberts, an Environment Officer from the Environment Agency, said: "By the time the oil leak was dealt with properly it had caused significant pollution in the River Dorn.

"Sadly this delay in the response by Cottsway Housing Association meant that oil leaked into the river, potentially causing harm to aquatic life of this watercourse."

The company was also fined for breaching its consent to discharge treated sewage effluent into Langford Brook in Langford, Oxfordshire, between 28 September 2005 and 28 April 2006.

The court heard that the company holds a consent allowing them to discharge treated sewage effluent into the Langford Brook from the Elms Sewage Treatment works.

The company has held the consent to discharge from the site in Langford since April 2001 and since then there has been a history of problems and failures. The company received a warning letter after a sample taken on 20 May 2005 failed its consent limits.
The site went back to operating within its limits until 28 September 2005, when a sample again exceeded the agreed limit. Four further samples taken until 28 April 2006 also failed their consent limits.