Fines and prosecutions Waste firm fined for ‘significant fire risk’ storage
WINTERS HAULAGE Limited was fined £510,000 for illegally storing ‘tonnes’ of rubbish, with the baled combustible waste ‘posing a significant fire risk’. The prosecution of company
director Liam Patrick Winters concerned the use of a site next to Royston Sewage Treatment Works (STW) on the Hertfordshire- Cambridgeshire border. Mr Winters’ company – now in liquidation – had operated under an environmental permit at its headquarters in Hitchin, but had operated the Royston site without a permit. It was told to clear the site by the
Environment Agency (EA), with some waste taken to a landfill site and some to Hitchin, one of two large waste transfer stations which it operated. However, waste transfer notes were ‘either absent or incorrect’, with more waste left illegally at the non permitted site named Kings Ride, and some baled waste later discovered at that site close to the STW. This was refuse derived fuel (RDF) that posed a ‘significant fire risk’, and Rebecca Vanstone – the EA’s prosecutor – stated that the ‘burial of waste would never have been permitted’, as the site is above a sensitive chalk aquifer. Landfilling of waste is only authorised under a specific permit, which requires a site to be engineered to ‘strict standards’ , to protect the environment. While there was no evidence of
groundwater contamination, Ms Vanstone added that there would be a time delay whilst contaminants travelled through, so there was a ‘possibility of harm in the future’. In mitigation, Mike Magee stated that in early 2014, RDF production facility Seneca Environmental Solutions Ltd offered Winters Haulage a service to deal with baled waste for transfer to Europe, but couldn’t take round bales. These were produced at the
Hitchin site, and so Winters Haulage used the Royston site to store the waste ‘as a temporary measure’ until its RDF contract ‘kicked in’. Mr Magee added that Mr Winters ‘never intended to undermine the statutory regime’, but the EA served a statutory notice for the site to be cleared, which the company
NEWS
failed to comply with, despite having four months to do so. EA officers then visited King’s Ride –
a racehorse training site – and saw six long rows of an estimated 450 green wrapped bales, some of which were ripped and revealed contents as mixed waste. Both the occupier and Winters Haulage were told to remove the waste, the latter producing waste transfer notes which said these had been taken to Hitchin, but showed that 60% of them was RDF, 30% card and paper, and 10% plastic. Ms Vanstone noted that this
was actually ‘mixed waste’, no bales were found with separate waste and RDF was ‘often used as a fuel’, with its potentially polluting liquid often leaking. Discrepancies in waste transfer notes, tracking of lorry movements and officer observation found the company was ‘acting illegally’, though Mr Winters claimed there were ‘several clerical errors’ on the notes, of which he was unaware. Arguing that he did not know a permit was needed for the Royston site and did not think storing materials next to the STW ‘was a bad place’, he added: ‘There was no fire risk.’ The company continued to move bales without transfer notes, and officers became suspicious once the Royston site was cleared, as the level of the land ‘appeared to have changed’ by up to 1.5m. Excavation found that waste had been buried, and landfill gas
was found, while the chalk bedrock had been excavated by up to 3.1m. Mr Winters claimed no waste was deliberately buried, but some ‘may have been accidentally buried after some bales had split’, with the ground ‘re-profiled to allow access’, Mr Magee adding that ‘it was never his [Mr Winters’] instruction to bury the waste’. The site has not yet been repaired, and will cost landowner Anglian Water Group £1.9m to restore, while Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service assessed the fire risk due to ‘the risk of dense acrid fumes from a fire posing a threat to public safety’. This required a council emergency plan, as the site is 2.5km from schools, nurseries, sheltered accommodation, and children’s and care homes. The risk of polluting groundwater
‘would have been moderate to high’ from firefighting water run off, and an EA analytical chemist concluded that a fire could have produced toxic substances. At Cambridge Magistrates’ Court, District Judge Ken Sheraton said Mr Winters was ‘certainly reckless’, and that his company’s actions were deliberate, with no systems preventing offences from being committed. He was ordered to carry out
180 hours of unpaid work as part of a 12 month community order, and ordered to pay £8,850 in costs, while the £510,000 fine consisted of £450,000 ‘saved or avoided by committing the offences’, plus costs of £30,000
www.frmjournal.com MARCH 2019 21
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