A Bakery firm from Evesham has been fined £23,500 and ordered to pay costs of £7,950 after an oil leak at their premises polluted up to two miles of the River Avon.
The Environment Agency were called to a report of large amounts of oil on the River Avon in June 2010. They then placed a pollution control boom on the river to contain the spill, and later confirmed that the oil had come from Dawn Foods Limited.
The bakery firm reported to the Environment Agency that approximately 5,000 litres of rapeseed oil had leaked from their tank, with around 800 litres of that finding its way into the River Avon after a bund that was in place around the tank failed to contain the leak.
Environment Agency officers had noted that the leak came from a flexible pipe attached to the storage tank. The pipe was, however, fixed in place with a jubilee clip that came loose; the use of which is not an industry recognised practice. The oil then entered the company's surface water drains and eventually ended up in the River.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said "This incident could have been avoided if the company had properly considered the environmental risks associated with their business activities. Dawn Foods Limited had poor knowledge of their own site drainage. They did not have a plan of what to do in the event of a spillage at the site and unfortunately this resulted in the pollution incident".
However, when passing the sentence on Dawn Foods Limited, Worcester Magistrates Court took into account the fact that the firm cooperated fully with the Environment Agency, had pleaded guilty early, had no previous convictions and had paid the costs for the clean-up.
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