AN ENGINEERING firm has been fined by magistrates for allowing toxic detergent to pollute a country stream.

Ceratex Engineering, of Croft House, Church Lane Works, Kelbrook, Earby, was fined £1,500 and ordered to pay £1,100 costs by Reedley magistrates in a case brought by the Environment Agency.

Ceratex pleaded guilty to knowingly causing poisonous, noxious or polluting matter - industrial detergent - to enter Earby Beck, contrary to Section 85 of the Water Resources Act 1991.

The court was told by the Agency's solicitor, David Stott, that on May 31 this year a discharge of industrial detergent led to the death of more than 200 brown trout and several hundred bullheads and stone loach along a two-mile stretch of New Cut and Earby Beck. The incident came to light after a member of the public spotted dead fish and foam on Earby Beck. Subsequent investigations showed that a drum of industrial detergent had leaked onto a concreted area at Ceratex.

The drum was emptied into a trade effluent sump before treatment in the effluent treatment plant.

The detergent sank to the bottom of the sump and then leaked into the nearby surface water system through a crack in the concrete.

It was estimated that between 100 and 150 litres of detergent escaped into the beck.

In mitigation the company co-operated fully with the investigation and paid the Agency's investigation and remediation costs totalling nearly £3,500.

Ceratex also paid to restock the beck with trout.

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