In court: March 2016

10th March 2016


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  • Business & Industry ,
  • Energy ,
  • Transport ,
  • Waste ,
  • Pollution & Waste Management

Author

Benjamin Lowery

A round-up of the latest environmental legal cases including Oran Environmental Services and Conoco Phillips.

Firm given Scotland’s highest confiscation order

A confiscation order of £345,558 has been handed to waste firm Oran Environmental Services (OES). It is the highest confiscation order in Scotland for environmental offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The firm was also fined £12,000.

OES pleaded guilty to three offences under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 at its Kilbagie Mill site in Alloa between December 2012 and August 2013. They relate to the company’s failure to remove waste materials from the site after enforcement action by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa); its storage of controlled waste on land not covered by a waste management licence; and its failure to carry out adequate pest control measures at the facility.

Sepa said it received numerous complaints about the site from local residents during 2013, including about an increased presence of vermin, flies and birds. The regulator made 43 visits to Kilbagie Mill, discovering during its investigation that that OES was using a non-licensed area, with waste stored in large unsegregated stockpiles, skips and bins. Sepa issued seven enforcement notices between April 2012 and July 2013, partially suspending the site’s licence on two occasions.

Sepa also raised concerns about leachate, a harmful effluent, which was running onto non-impermeable surfaces on the ground.

The Crown Office said the confiscation order represented the full benefit the company made from failing to comply with the legislation and fees they avoided with their failings. Lindsey Miller, procurator fiscal for organised crime and counter-terrorism, said: ‘This company was operating on a site that they had refused to make fit for purpose at the expense of the local environment and at a significant financial benefit to them. By failing to remove the waste they had sought to pocket over £300,000.’

Calum MacDonald, executive director at Sepa, said: ‘The confiscation order reflects the costs avoided by the company in undertaking these illegal activities and is the result of close collaborative working between Sepa and the Crown Office.’ He said the scale of the order sends a ‘clear and unequivocal message’ that environmental crime will not be tolerated and that Sepa would pursue those who seek to profit.

Oil and gas company fined £3m

Lincoln Crown Court has fined ConocoPhillips (UK) £3m and ordered it to pay costs of £159,459 for two uncontrolled and one controlled but unexpected gas release on the Lincolnshire Offshore Gas Gathering System (LOGGS) in 2012.

The LOGGS complex is situated 70 miles off the Lincolnshire coast and is made up of five interlinked platforms. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that maintenance work to replace a gas pressure control valve on one of three gas turbines used to generate electricity for the installation triggered two releases on 30 November. The third release occurred the next day. Overall, around 603kg of produced hydrocarbon gas was released.

The HSE served the company with a prohibition notice on 13 December 2012 for failing to control the gas releases. The firm said it had modified its LOGGS incident command system to prevent a repeat of these incidents.

ConocoPhillips (UK), part of the US oil and gas multinational, pleaded guilty to three breaches of the Offshore Installations (Prevention of Fire and Explosion, and Emergency Response) Regulations 1995.

Ferry firm pleads guilty to pollution

Newry Magistrates’ Court has given Seatruck Ferries a two-year conditional discharge for polluting the shoreline between Warrenpoint Harbour and Narrow Water Castle in County Down.

After reports of a spill of heavy fuel oil into Warrenpoint Harbour on 22 October 2014 from the vessel, Seatruck Panorama, inspectors from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency found contamination along a 3km stretch of Carlingford Lough. The freight ferry company, which operates services between Heysham in Lancashire and Warrenpoint, pleaded guilty to the offence of making a polluting discharge to a waterway under the Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999.

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