A director who allowed thousands of tonnes of waste to be illegally deposited in a former quarry has been jailed for more than two years.
Mark Foley, of Cardiff, was jailed for illegally disposing of 100,000 tonnes of waste at Stowey Quarry, a former limestone quarry near Chew Valley reservoir. The offence happened within the first nine months of 2016, leading to an intensive investigation by the Environment Agency into the management of the site.
Bristol Crown Court described the illegal operation, which accepted waste from around England, as one of the most serious risks of harm in the country during the past 30 years. Foley was additionally jailed for a further 18 weeks, to be served concurrently, for supplying false information to the Environment Agency.
Trading as M E Foley (Contractors) Ltd, Foley operated the quarry under an environmental permit, which was only to accept non-hazardous material, such as soil and construction waste, in order to build bunds and embankments in the quarry. He was responsible for checking the waste arriving at the site to make sure it was inert, but he flouted the rules, filling the site with other waste.
After repeated warnings, the Environment Agency served his firm with a suspension notice that cancelled its permit with immediate effect and stopped the site from operating in October 2016.
The Agency said that samples taken from trial pits and boreholes revealed a high percentage of chopped and shredded plastics, metals, foam and other man-made materials. Analysis showed that about half the samples were hazardous and either carcinogenic or harmful to the environment. The investigation included the monitoring of landfill gases and sampling of nearby streams that showed an elevated concentration of gases together with leachate breaking out onto the surface of some surrounding fields.
Not only was the site dishonestly accepting the wrong type of waste, Foley also lied about the amount of waste being received. After checking waste transfer notes provided by the waste producers and hauliers, it was estimated that in 2016 alone, almost 95,000 tonnes of waste was deposited at Stowey Quarry - double the 44,950 tonnes declared by Foley.
Foley pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching the Environmental Protection Act 1990. His firm ME Foley (Contractors) pleaded guilty to one breach of the Act. He was jailed for two years and three months. His firm, registered with Companies House as a developer of building projects, civils and demolition contractor, was fined £72,000.
After the hearing, Rebecca Kirk of the Environment Agency said: “It has taken 3 years of meticulous work for our investigation into Stowey Quarry to reach this stage. This was environmental offending of the highest order.”
