Sappi fined for polluting three rivers

Paper company Sappi (UK) Limited was recently fined £17,500 after a court heard how it polluted three rivers with a toxic chemical near its premises in Blackburn. The company pleaded guilty to polluting the Rivers Roddlesworth, Darwen and Ribble with a chemical called Chemisolv CB375. As well as being fined, the company was ordered to pay full costs of £37,444.79 to the Environment Agency, which brought the prosecution.

Mr Bill Rankin, prosecuting for the Agency, told Preston Crown Court that pollution affecting the River Darwen at Hoghton Bottoms was reported, by a member of the public, to the Environment Agency on Sunday, 24 January 1998. Sappi failed to notify the Agency about the incident. An Agency Environment Protection Officer went to investigate and found dead fish in the Rivers Darwen and Roddlesworth downstream of Sappi's premises at Blackburn Mill, Feniscowles. The following day he found a white liquid seeping into the River Roddlesworth inside a tunnel carying the river beneath the mill. Above ground in the site Agency staff saw that a delivery pipe to a tank containing Chemisolv CB375 was being replaced, and that there had been a recent attempt at a temporary repair.

The court was also told that a surface water drain nearby, designed to carry only clean rainwater, was being cleaned, and that the Chemisolv stock record for that week read "spillage to drain". Agency staff used coloured dye to confirm that the surface water drain led directly to the River Roddlesworth in the tunnel under the mill. Further investigation by the Agency revealed that a member of staff at Sappi had noticed a leak from the pipe, but only when he stepped in it and slipped. In all, the Agency believes about 7,200kg of Chemisolv leaked from the pipe, and some of that went down the drain and into the rivers.

In the days following the incident Agency fisheries experts found thousands of dead fish downstream of Sappi's site, but none upstream. Chemisolv is highly toxic to fish over short periods of exposure. However, the Agency is unable to provide direct evidence that the chemical was responsible for killing all the dead fish found in the rivers following the incident. The recorder, Mr Andrew Edis QC, hearing the case, said that he took a "very dim view indeed of the efforts to mislead employees of the Agency". He also said that where a polluter has caused or permitted a discharge to enter a watercourse, the polluter has a high level duty to co-operate with the Agency and make sure that waterways are rendered safe.