£1,200 f ine for spill that wiped out trout and salmon in burn
A BUSINESSMAN yesterday admitted being responsible for a chemical spill that suffocated salmon stocks in a conservation area and left 50,000 people without a drinking water supply.
Andrew Bailie, 38, admitted causing a pollution incident which wiped out salmon and trout stocks in a protected tributary of the River Tay in Perthshire.
Perth Sheriff Court was told that the area was a vital spawning ground for the fish and that the water would take three years to recover from the ecological damage.
Scottish Water was forced to step in and cut off the water supply to the homes of 50,000 people as a precautionary measure after the pollution was reported.
A hospital and food producers were impacted by the shutdown caused by the spillage of anaerobic digestate into the Ordie Burn near Bankfoot between September 21 and 23, 2015.
Sheriff William Wood told Bailie there had been ‘fearful consequences for the environment of digestate being spilled into the burn’. Bailie, of Lanark, was operations manager of Digestate Management Services, which had been hired to spread fertiliser at Little Tullibelton Farm.
He admitted breaching strict regulations to keep a storage tank at least 10 metres (33ft) from the water supply, by letting it be housed three metres (10ft) from the water’s edge.
The court was told that a 200 metre (220 yards) pipe attached to a trac- tor was being used to spread the digestate fertiliser on the farm field.
However, a ‘kink’ developed in the pipe which led to a spillage of up to 500 litres (109 gallons) of the substance into the water supply with fatal consequences for wildlife.
Fiscal depute Fiona Caldwell said the on-site tank had been moved closer to the water because of wet conditions making a delivery difficult on the day.
The court was told that Bailie became aware that the tank was too close to the burn but did nothing about it and was therefore responsible for the incident.
She said: ‘It was certainly a significant incident. The fish levels would take two or three years to recover according to the ecology report.
‘It is a designated special area of conservation. It is environmentally important for threatened habitat or species. It is an important spawning location for salmon and trout.’
She said the legislation allowed for the offender to be fined up to £40,000 and jailed for 12 months. Sheriff Wood fined Bailie £1,200.
Solicitor Paul Santoni, defending, said: ‘There was a kink in the pipe which would stop the digestate flowing at the approved rate. The tank overflowed, resulting in 120 to 510 litres of digestate spilling over.
‘All of that has gone into the burn. This affected salmon stocks and fish were killed on the day. My client and everybody else is appalled that this happened.
‘Fish were killed almost instantaneously as the ammonia took the oxygen out of the water. It is an extremely unfortunate case.
‘When he saw the fish had been killed he was upset, annoyed and distressed about the incident.’
‘Appalled that this happened’