Egg producer prosecuted for damaging water quality

A duck egg producer in Spalding has been prosecuted by the Environment Agency for causing a pollution incident that caused serious damage to wildlife in a local tributary.

Alan Twell, who ran his business from the Mallard House Farm in Donington, was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay costs of £4,917 by Spalding Magistrates' Court on February 3rd.

Slurry and liquid waste was channelled from the premises and ran into the Mallard Hurn Drain, killing fish and other wildlife in July last year.

The Environment Agency investigated following reports of dead fish in the watercourse and discovered that the amounts of ammonia, biological oxygen demand and suspended solids were well above healthy levels.

Ammonia is a highly toxic substance to aquatic life when it is released into water environments in significant quantities.

Consequently, 600m of the Mallard Hurn Drain was affected, as was a 400m-stretch of a tributary leading to the stream.

When officers returned to the site more than one month after the initial incident, they found that the pipe taking waste liquid into the waterway had not been blocked.

Prosecutor Claire Bentley told the court that the pollution could have been avoided "if good farming practice had been followed".

Posted by Joseph Hutton