On 20 August 2007, Uniq Prepared Foods Ltd pleaded guilty at Shrewsbury Magistrates Court to three charges of breach of permit and one charge to polluting the Minsterley Brook, which resulted in the death of over 800 fish.
The charges were brought by the Environment Agency under the Water Resources Act (1991) and the Pollution Prevention and Control regulations. Uniq Prepared Foods Ltd were fined £17,500 and ordered to pay costs of £6083.33.
For the Environment Agency, Jill Robson told the court that Minsterley Creamery is owned and operated by Uniq Prepared Foods Ltd. On 5 February 2006, the Environment Agency received a report of dead fish in the Minsterley Brook at Malehurst, downstream of Minsterley.
Environment Agency officers attended the scene and notified staff at Minsterley Creamery, as their site was upstream of the affected section of the brook. Initial investigations by the Environment Agency focussed on the discharge from the effluent plant at Minsterley Creamery.
The following day, officers continued to investigate the source of the pollution. Invertebrate sampling was arranged and investigations commenced on a ditch to the west of the site, which has a discharge from the cooling water system. Field and laboratory analysis of the discharge from the cooling water system showed the water being discharged to the brook contained free chlorine at toxic levels to fish.
Results of an investigation by staff at Minsterley Creamery were reported by the company’s Chief Engineer in a letter and interview with the Environment Agency. It appears that an abstraction pump used as part of the cooling water process had lost prime resulting in the pumps running dry. The automatic dosing unit continued to dose sodium hypochlorite into the pipework. When the pumps where primed and started pumping water again it resulted in a plug of sodium hypochlorite being pushed into a concrete storage tank which had by this time become empty.
The system dechlorinates the water prior to use in the factory and subsequent discharge, however this could not compensate adequately for the exceptionally high levels of chlorine in the water.
Speaking after the case, Michelle Pardoe, an Environment Agency Team Leader involved in the investigation said “This was a serious incident. Chlorine is highly toxic to fish and invertebrates and caused significant damage to the river habitat for up to 1.5 kilometres downstream of the creameryâ€.
“We are assured that the company has taken this issue seriously and have taken steps to ensure that this problem does not happen againâ€.
In mitigation the company entered an early guilty plea and have fully co-operated with the Environment Agency. We are also confident that this was not a deliberate breach of environmental regulations.â€
