Firm fined over reducing water quality

A food-producing company has been handed a £10,000 fine and been ordered to pay over £4,000 in costs after ammonia leaked into a river, polluting the waterway.

Adams Pork Products Limited, which is based in Ruskington near Sleaford, pleaded guilty to causing "poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, namely ammonia, to enter controlled waters".

Maintenance work on refrigeration units at the company caused the contamination, when workers used a tank of water to bubble ammonia gas through while carrying out the repairs.

The leaked chemical seriously affected the biology of a 2.5 km stretch of a tributary of the Ruskington Beck in Lincolnshire in May 2008, resulting in the death of more than 100 fish.

James Brackenbury, investigating officer for the Environment Agency, noted that the level of ammonia found in the stream was 24 times greater than would be expected even in a watercourse of very low quality.

The Environment Agency reported that there were 552 cases of pollution that seriously affected water quality in 2007.

Posted by Lauren Steadman