A Surrey drain company which ignored Environment Agency advice before polluting a stream has been fined £1,000.
AB Pipeline Services Limited of Camberley, Surrey, was also ordered to pay £1,784 in costs after admitting one offence of polluting the Letcombe Brook in Wantage, Oxfordshire in August 2006.
Didcot Magistrates’ Court heard that the company, which specialises in drain and sewer work, was contracted to complete a CCTV survey of the drainage system for a recently completed construction development alongside the Letcombe Brook, near Limborough Road, Wantage.
The Letcombe Brook is a chalk stream which rises in the Chilterns at Letcombe Bassett and flows for 12 kilometres through the Oxfordshire countryside, as well as numerous villages and towns including Wantage, before joining the Childrey brook and eventually the Thames.
The brook is important ecologically as it is one of the few streams where white clawed crayfish can be found, England’s only native crayfish species. The Environment Agency is working with a number of partners to improve the habitat in the Letcombe Brook and is planning several initiatives specifically for its crayfish. It is also important to control development alongside the brook to minimise impact on the ecology and habitat.
On Tuesday 8 August 2006, Environment Officer Chris Young visited several construction sites in Wantage following a complaint of silt pollution. During the site visits, he met staff from AB Pipeline Services Limited, who were setting up pumping equipment in a manhole. Mr Young warned them about the need to prevent any silt pollution entering the brook and advised them that the water should be either pumped to a silt settlement tank, or pumped over land where it would not enter the brook.
Two days later, on Thursday 10 August, the Environment Agency received a phone call from a member of the public reporting that the Letcombe brook was polluted with silt and that an AB Pipeline Services van had been seen pumping water into the brook, causing the contamination.
Chris Young spoke to Andrew Baker, the managing director at AB Pipeline Services, and advised him to stop his employees pumping silt into the brook. Mr Young visited the site that afternoon with a colleague and found the brook to be cloudy and grey in colour. There were no longer any people working on the site, or any vehicles. The ground around a manhole close to the stream appeared to have mud and water on and part of the riverbank looked as though it had had water running down it recently.
The officers took water samples of the stream and photographs, and then followed the brook downstream observing at several points that the brook was grey and cloudy. At the point of discharge, the concentration of suspended solids in the brook was recorded at 93milligrams per litre (mg/l). Upstream it was only 6 mg/l.
Mr Baker was interviewed on 14 September, 2006, by the Environment Agency and said that his company had been pumping out the manhole as it had become flooded by water from the brook. Mr Baker said that using settlement tanks was not usual for a job like this. However, he did admit that some silt had gone into the brook, and the Environment Agency considers that more could have been done to avoid causing pollution.
The Environment Agency has received a number of complaints concerning silt pollution in this area.
Mr Young said: “We are pleased that the court saw fit to impose a fine on the company yesterday, as it did ignore the advice given to them just a few days before polluting the stream. However, we appreciate that it has cooperated fully with our investigation and did admit that it had caused the pollution.
“Silt pollution effects the aquatic environment in a number of ways, such as affecting spawning fish and clogging and damaging the sensitive tissues of animals such as the mouths and gills of fish.
“Fortunately, following this incident, we have not perceived any serious impacts on the stream, but we hope this will serve as a warning to others that polluting this important ecological stream is unacceptable and we will ensure that offenders are brought before the courts.â€
