Abbey Metals fire from April 2010. Picture courtesy of the Environment Agency.
Metals finishing company, Abbey Metal Finishing Company Limited, has been fined £133,000 for ‘failing to take measures to prevent major accidents and limit their consequences to the environment’ and for breaching their environmental permit.
Birmingham Crown Court ordered the firm to pay a £133,000 fine and £33,000 in costs, along with a £15 victim surcharge, after Abbey Metals pleaded guilty to charges brought against them by the Environment Agency (EA).
Firewater pollution led to fish deaths
The case was brought to court after a large fire broke out at the metal finishing plant at Weddington Road in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, on 22 April 2010. The site, which backs onto the River Anker, was doused with water by the fire department but despite their ‘best efforts’, pollution from the plant entered the river.
Samples carried out by Environment Agency officers showed that metal treating pollutants including cyanides, copper and cadmium were present in the river water, which officers said resulted in approximately 27,000 fish deaths along a six kilometre stretch of river.
Further, the EA said that ‘large numbers’ of dead fish were visible floating down the river, and live fish were seen to be ‘irritated to the point of jumping out of the water’ onto the banks.
This incident was a ‘Major Accident’ under the Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) Regulations 1999 (COMAH) and required notification to the European Commission.
Abbey Metals was found to be responsible for the contamination, after EA officers established that the company’s emergency plan had failed, as there were ‘inadequate arrangements on site to contain the firewater, and no prior arrangements to access the sewerage system for emergency storage or tanker contaminated water off site’.
Speaking after the case, an Environment Agency officer in charge of the investigation said: “The competent authority expects high standards from COMAH establishments. Where accidents are foreseeable, the operator must plan to prevent or mitigate them. This is what Abbey Metal failed to do.”
In mitigation, the court was told that the company had co-operated fully and had entered an early guilty plea. The company has said that it has since ‘put measures in place to ensure that this situation could not reoccur’.
Read more about the Environment Agency.
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