The Department of Environment in Northern Ireland has issued thousands of pounds worth of fines to several farmers for polluting waterways.
Over the past month several farmers have appeared in Magistrates’ Courts charged with the offence under Article 7 (1) (a) of the Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999, or with the offence of breaching the Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations (NI) 2003.
William Ritchie, of Cara Road, Newtownbutler, Co Fermanagh, was fined £5000 on 13 February for making a polluting discharge to the Lackey River, a tributary of the Finn River, Upper Lough Erne. In June 2011 Water Quality Inspectors acting on behalf of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency observed farmyard effluent running down Cara Road. They traced the effluent to Mr Richie’s farm where they observed that it was overflowing from a storage tank, flowing down the road and entering into the road drain that discharged to the waterway.
Also on 13 February, Dale Farm Ltd, a dairy farm in Dunmanbridge, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, was fined a total of £2,500 for the offence of contravening a condition of their Pollution Prevention and Control Permit by exceeding the limits of suspended solids, ammonical nitrogen and biological oxygen demand discharged from the site’s effluent treatment plant to the Lissan River.
A Co Armagh farmer, Reginald Gardiner, of Summerhill, Lurgan was fined £1,250 on 7 February when his farm was found to be the source of pollution into a waterway. On 13 December 2010, Water Quality Inspectors observed a heavy growth of fungus on the bed of a waterway. The pollutant was potentially harmful to marine life in the receiving watercourse.
Farmer Kenneth Watson, of Macosquin, Coleraine, Co Londonderry, received a £500 fine on 3 February in similar circumstances.
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