A farmer and company have been ordered to pay out over £23,000 after they were found guilty of "gross pollution" caused by waste vegetables.
Spreading and storing excessive amounts of vegetable washings on a farm in Outwell, Norfolk led to what the Environment Agency labelled "gross pollution" of a watercourse.
DEM (King’s Lynn) Ltd stored highly polluting waste in a lagoon and spread too much of the organic waste onto land controlled by Trevor William Sieley, leading to run off and pollution, King’s Lynn Magistrates heard.
Storage and spreading of waste on the land by the company was illegal and magistrates fined both the person in control of the land and the company.
Mr Sieley, who had received a warning letter and previous offences for similar actions, was fined £1,920 and ordered to pay costs of £10,041 as well as a victim surcharge of £170.
He had denied knowingly allowing the illegal waste operation but the court found him guilty, deciding that his actions were reckless.
DEM, which pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to spreading the waste illegally, was fined £3,667, ordered to pay £7,666 and a victim surcharge of £170.
7,700 tonnes
Gurjit Bdesha, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told the court the company had deposited and stored waste at the site for almost two years under an exemption, which did not cover the level of operations.
There was no environmental permit, which would have set out conditions to protect the environment.
Waste vegetable washings were stored and spread on 3.99 hectares of land at Poplar Farm in Outwell.
The exemption allowed for waste produced only on the farm to be spread, but waste potatoes and washings were brought from two companies onto the site.
During 20 months it is estimated that 7,700 tonnes of waste was taken to the farm and deposited or spread.
Mr Sieley had registered an exemption to spread waste on agricultural land to improve soil quality but failed to comply with its conditions.
A lagoon, used to store some of the waste, over-spilled, and there was too much spread on the land.
'Decaying smell'
Environment Agency officers visited the site in April 2015 after reports from Nordelph Internal Drainage Board that a slurry pit was polluting nearby watercourses.
They found heaps of potatoes stored in the field, straw bale walls of the lagoon decomposing and effluent leaking from the lagoon into the ditch.
In June they told the company to stop work and clear up the site by 1 October, but no action was taken.
Mr Bdesha said: "In November 2015 the lagoon looked the same, potatoes around the site were in various states of decay and the soil in the field gave off a decaying smell. The lagoon was also over-spilling into a ditch that flowed to the IDB drain."
The court heard that in 2007 Mr Sieley was the sole director of another company that was involved in a similar incident on land at Outwell which resulted in his previous conviction.
In 2005, he was issued with a warning letter for the disposal of potato wash water on to land/into a soak-away pit at Walsingham Fen, Outwell without a waste management licence.
