Mallusk Firm Hit With River Pollution Fine

Following unease over a failure to prosecute anyone for a series of pollution incidents that left thousands of fish dead in a Co Antrim river and its tributaries, a Mallusk company has now been fined for a number of waste offences.

The company was fined a total of £6,000 this week for 12 offences of contravening the terms of a discharge consent into a waterway.



James Boyd and Sons (Carnmoney) Ltd, The Square, Ballyclare was fined £500 for each charge plus £67 court costs at Belfast Magistrates' Court.



The company has consent to discharge effluent from a quarry it operates at Mallusk Road, Newtownabbey, into a waterway, namely the Cottonmount Drain, a tributary of the Sixmile Water, but it sets limits on the quality and quantity of the effluent that can be discharged.



Following complaints of pollution, statutory samples were taken from the consented discharge point between 1 August 2006 and 4 January 2007.



The results showed that all of these samples failed to comply with the consent conditions in respect of suspended solids.



A Department of Environment spokesperson said that the discharges were found to be highly polluting in nature, containing deleterious matter and would have been potentially harmful to the fish-life in a receiving watercourse.

The Company was charged under Article 9 (4) of the Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 with the offence of contravening the terms of a discharge consent issued by the Department of the Environment dated 1 December 2000.



See: Sammy Goes 'Wild' Over Salmon

(BMcC)