Environmental fine for ‘Detergent Director’

The director of a Slough waste management firm has been forced to pay more than £52,000 after spillages into a River Thames’ tributary wiped out local fish.

In 2009, a tanker belonging to DS Holdings Ltd, trading as waster carrier Envirogreen, and its director Neil Stewart accidentally discharged almost 4,500 litres of hazardous chemicals into the Chalvey Ditch, near Cippenham, causing the watercourse’s fish to perish for many miles.

Environmental Agency officers claimed the stream had turned blue-grey, was covered in foam and the smell of detergent filled the air as thousands of pike, eel, perch, chub, dace, sticklebacks, roach, gudgeon, ruffe and bullheads were killed. The whole tributary’s ecosystem will bear the marks of DS Holdings’ actions for years to come.

DS Holdings Ltd was accused of allowing pollutants to enter the waterway, operating a regulated factory without the necessary environmental permits while failing to keep a record and consignment note of all hazardous waste processed and transported.

Both parties pleaded guilty to a total of five offences under the Water Resources Act 1991, Environmental Permitting (England & Wales) Regulations 2007, and the Hazardous Waste (England and Wastes) Regulations 2005.

Bracknell Magistrates’ Court issued Envirogreen with a £23,600 fine plus £15,000 in costs and a further £8,170 in compensation payable to the Environment Agency. Mr Stewart was fined £14,000 personally and the Agency was keen to stress the legal dangers facing those who ‘cut-corners’.

“The pollution had a devastating effect on the area. Thousands of fish were killed in the Chalvey Ditch along with an unknown number of invertebrates along a four-kilometer stretch, and it may take years to recover,” fumed Environmental Agency Investigating Officer, Neil Martin.

 “My message to companies which transport, store or treat any sort of waste is simple - transport and store it safely and with the appropriate permits, ensuring that it cannot leak. We will not tolerate the pollution of our rivers and neither will the courts.”