Sausage skin firm fined £6,000
Thursday, 1st March 2001.
A HAVERHILL sausage skin company has been fined a total of £6,000 by magistrates after admitting charges of polluting a public sewer.
Associated Casings of Cherry Gardens, Haverhill, was fined £2,000 for discharging more than nine times the legal limit of chloride into the sewer last June.
The company was also fined £2,500 for discharging almost four times the permitted level of suspended solids and £500 for a discharge marginally over the permitted level for chemical oxygen last November.
Magistrates at Sudbury also ordered the company, whose managing director Terence Rudgeley was in court, to pay £1,000 costs.
Tom Harrison, representing the company, said they felt "almost victimised" by Anglian Water, who he accused of responding to criticism over the smell problem in Haverhill.
"There has been pressure for a long time to remove the water treatment works and to have a more satisfactory arrangement because the town is expanding to the extent that the existing one will not cope with the job.
"Anglian Water's response is that of a more rigid enforcement of restrictions, rather than biting the bullet and providing a new treatment works," Mr Harrison said.
Richard McAdam, for Anglian Water, said Associated Casings was treated the same as any other company and Haverhill's sewage treatment works could cope perfectly well with the town's needs.
Mr McAdam said water samples taken by the trade effluent inspector had revealed levels higher than the company was licensed to discharge.
Chemical oxygen could overwhelm biological treatment processes and lead to smells. High levels of solids could cause a blockages and high chloride could affect river water quality when discharged, as it was almost impossible to remove.
Mr Harrison said the discharge was not of dangerous chemicals, but mainly chloride, commonly known as salt. Samples had been taken at times when systems were shut down, making them much higher than normal.
Enid Hill, chairman of the bench, said they had taken into account the offences appeared to be one-off and they had taken action to avoid further problems.
Associated Casings of Cherry Gardens, Haverhill, was fined £2,000 for discharging more than nine times the legal limit of chloride into the sewer last June.
The company was also fined £2,500 for discharging almost four times the permitted level of suspended solids and £500 for a discharge marginally over the permitted level for chemical oxygen last November.
Magistrates at Sudbury also ordered the company, whose managing director Terence Rudgeley was in court, to pay £1,000 costs.
Tom Harrison, representing the company, said they felt "almost victimised" by Anglian Water, who he accused of responding to criticism over the smell problem in Haverhill.
"There has been pressure for a long time to remove the water treatment works and to have a more satisfactory arrangement because the town is expanding to the extent that the existing one will not cope with the job.
"Anglian Water's response is that of a more rigid enforcement of restrictions, rather than biting the bullet and providing a new treatment works," Mr Harrison said.
Richard McAdam, for Anglian Water, said Associated Casings was treated the same as any other company and Haverhill's sewage treatment works could cope perfectly well with the town's needs.
Mr McAdam said water samples taken by the trade effluent inspector had revealed levels higher than the company was licensed to discharge.
Chemical oxygen could overwhelm biological treatment processes and lead to smells. High levels of solids could cause a blockages and high chloride could affect river water quality when discharged, as it was almost impossible to remove.
Mr Harrison said the discharge was not of dangerous chemicals, but mainly chloride, commonly known as salt. Samples had been taken at times when systems were shut down, making them much higher than normal.
Enid Hill, chairman of the bench, said they had taken into account the offences appeared to be one-off and they had taken action to avoid further problems.
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