TWO companies have each been fined £3,000 after polluting a stream in St Helens with thousands of litres of diesel, following a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency.

P & H (1925) Limited and Autobar Limited were both convicted of causing the diesel to enter Clipsley Brook, a tributary of Sankey Brook, from their shared site at the Haydock Industrial Estate.

St Helens Magistrates Court heard how the Environment Agency's 24-hour Regional Communications Centre received several calls from the public about oil in the brook on April 13, 1996. Agency staff went to investigate and found that a surface water outlet to the brook, designed to carry only clear rainwater, was discharging neat diesel into the water. Manholes were checked and oil was found to be entering one of them from the P & H/Autobar site.

The Environment Agency's investigation of the site continued for two weeks, but no source of the leaking diesel could be found. The leaking oil was initially suspected to be coming from a heating tank serving Autobar's premise. The tank and its pipework were checked but no problems were found. On April 30, Autobar refilled the tank but two days later there were more complaints about oil in Clipsley Brook which was again confirmed as diesel.

The tank was checked and was empty - despite 5,000 litres of diesel being delivered on April 30. A further investigation revealed that a manhole at the front of P & H's premises was heavily contaminated with diesel, and that there must have been a previously-unknown connection between Autobar's heating oil pipeline and the P & H site.

The problem was eventually traced to a pipe linking Autobar's tank with P & H's, terminating at a point where a redundant boiler had previously been removed. An underground section of this pipe was tested and found to be leaking - causing oil to reach into the brook.

A specialist clean-up company completed the removal of the diesel from Clipsley Brook.

Autobar and P & H were both fined £3,000 by magistrates but costs were deferred to allow the defendants to make written representations to the court.

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