Clapham anaerobic site risked pollution
20 Jun 2014 04:01 PM
A spill at
Biogen’s anaerobic digestion site in Bedfordshire resulted from the
company not following its own procedures, a court
heard.
Mrs Claire Corfield, prosecuting
for the Environment Agency at Luton Magistrates’ Court, said there had
been a series of errors on 11 June 2012.
The company, which operates from
Twinwoods Farm, Oakley Littlewood, Clapham, pleaded guilty to breaching its
permit and was fined and ordered to pay costs totalling
£8,700.
The company asked for a second
offence concerning failing to report the incident without delay to be taken
into consideration by the court.
Not checked
Mrs Corfield told the court that
on the day of the incident, electrical work was undertaken to the new separator
situated between 2 digestate storage tanks. Following this work, a company
operative turned an isolator switch back on re-starting the pumped transfer of
digestate between the tanks. The site manager was unaware of this and forgot to
do his close down checks at the end of the day.
Later investigations showed the
company had failed to follow a number of its procedures which meant the
necessary risk assessments were not carried out before electrical work was done
to the new separator.
In addition there was no written
procedure for the transfer of digestate between storage tanks, there was no
system of planned preventative maintenance and visual checks of underground
pipes were sporadic and not recorded. Before the incident, the company had
identified various pollution risks at the site, yet had failed to adequately
address them.
Two spills
The result was 2 separate spills
which were spotted on CCTV by the head of plant operations, who was monitoring
the site from home and alerted the site manager.
The site manager went to the
site and reported back that a storage tank was overfilled and about 350 cubic
metres of digestate (a nutrient-rich substance produced by anaerobic digestion
that can be used as a fertiliser) had overflowed onto the ground and there was
a separate spill of 20 cubic metres of raw waste. It appeared that the spills
had been contained on site by the bund. No alarms had been
triggered.
Biogen’s permit authorises
the acceptance and treatment of 47,500 tonnes of combined food waste and pig
slurry per year. It also requires a written management system to identify and
minimise risks of pollution.
Dam
Mrs Corfield said that
Environment Agency officers were alerted to the site the following day by a
complaint of bad smells from a member of the public and found a large amount of
digestate covering the base of the compound. A surface water outfall pipe, from
the site and neighbouring pig unit, was discharging a black effluent into the
adjacent ditch which smelt of digestate.
Downstream a dam had been built
and the ditch was being cleaned up. Fifteen hours after the spills were
discovered, the company reported the incident to the Agency.
Previous
conviction
A company representative told
investigating officers that an underground pipe had fractured resulting in the
spill of raw waste and that a transfer pump between 2 storage tanks had been
left running unattended. He said they had notified the Agency as soon as they
realised there might be a link between the spill and the levels of ammonia in
the outfall pipe.
The company has a previous
conviction for a pollution at the same site on 19 November 2010 which involved
the spill of 300 cubic metres of digestate.
There was a similar incident at
another anaerobic digester plant at Westwood in September 2010 when an alarm
failed and 1 tonne of digestate had gone into a ditch.
Digestate has the potential to
harm the environment if it gets into watercourses. Digestate from anaerobic
digestion of food waste and slurry is likely to contain grossly polluting
levels of biochemical oxygen demand and ammonia.
After the hearing, Environment
Agency officer Rob Jamieson said:
“This case demonstrates
the potential for adverse environmental impact resulting from an inadequate
environmental management system and the failure to apply the controls within
the management system fully.”
##Charges
Biogen pleaded guilty to: On or
about 11 June 2012 you, being the operator of an Environmental Permit reference
EPR/KP3496NT (as varied), for a regulated facility at Twinwoods Farm, Oakley
Littlewood, Clapham, Bedfordshire MK41 6BL, failed to comply with Condition
1.1.1(a) of the said Permit in that you failed to manage and operate the
activities: In accordance with a written management system that identifies and
minimises risks of pollution.
(Contrary to Regulation 38(2)
Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations
2010).
Biogen asked for the following
offence to be taken into consideration:
On or about 11 June 2012 you,
being the operator of an Environmental Permit reference EPR/KP3496NT (as
varied), for a regulated facility at Twinwoods Farm, Oakley Littlewood,
Clapham, Bedfordshire MK41 6BL, failed to comply with Condition 4.3.1(a) of the
said Permit in that you failed to notify the Agency without delay following the
detection of any malfunction, breakdown or failure of equipment or techniques,
accident or emission of a substance not controlled by an emission limit which
has caused, is causing or may cause significant pollution.
(Contrary to Regulation 38(2)
Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations
2010).