11/05/2005 - Three and
a half tonnes of chicken blood poured from
a skip being used to transport it causing
a road to be closed for four hours and a smell
which made people feel nauseous and wretch.
The smell could be detected for two to three
miles, was apparent in local offices for a
week afterwards and caused some people to
have headaches and be unable to eat.
Emergency vehicles which attended the incident
had to be taken out of service for thorough
cleaning, many other vehicles had to be pressure
washed and disinfected before re-use and one
company had to have 40 cars and its car park
cleaned as a result of staff driving through
the blood.
Colchester Magistrates today fined the pet
food company responsible, JG Pears (Newark)
Ltd, £10,000 and ordered them to pay
£1,992 costs after they admitted causing
poisonous, noxious or polluting matter to
enter controlled waters, namely an unnamed
ditch tributary of the River Colne, at Fordham
near Colchester in the County of Essex on
or about 26 July 2004, contrary to s85(1)
Water Resources Act 1991.
The driver of the skip lorry, Keith Forsdyke,
told Environment Agency investigating officers
that he had inspected the skip before collection
and there were no apparent leaks but he had
not driven far from the site in Wormingford
when he noticed in his mirror that blood was
coming from it.
He pulled into the entrance of an industrial
estate to call his bosses to alert the fire
brigade and local council. He tried to plug
the flow with a piece of sacking but blood
flowed down the road and into ditches and
the road gulley.
Essex police closed the road to stop vehicles
slipping on the spilt blood and the fire service
asked people from local businesses to stay
inside while they attempted to stop the flow
into surface water drains.
While driving to the scene, an Environment
Agency officer had to go along a road coated
with pools of blood. His car wheels and wheel
arches were coated with blood and when he
got out of the car the smell was overwhelming.
Congealed blood had become very sticky coating
the road and his boots and while taking samples
from the ditches the smell had become so overpowering
that he wretched for a minute.
Essex Highways Authority spread sand on the
road and a road sweeper jetted the surface
with water and sucked up the liquid. It took
two sweepers to clean it off.
Specialist waste removal contractors had
to be brought in to clean up the mess from
the ditches with a mechanical digger and it
took a week to finish the job. Under Animal
By-Products Regulations very few waste sites
could deal with the clean-up and the blood
had to be incinerated.
Two weeks after the event heavy rainfall
caused poultry blood to be washed out from
underground pipe work and the specialist company
had to return for a further clean up.
Christopher Walmsley, quality manager of
JG Pears confirmed to the Environment Agency
that about three-and-a-half tonnes of blood
had been lost through a split in the end of
the skip underneath the valve which ‘appeared
to have been caused by impact from a forklift
truck.’
Skips are no longer used to transfer chicken
blood from the customer’s site. They now use
a vacuum tank.
Samples taken from the site showed that the
chicken blood in the ditch was about 300 times
more polluting than untreated crude sewage
and on the roadside was almost 400 times more
polluting.
After the hearing Environment Agency Officer
Jamie Fairfull said: ‘This incident caused
a very acute impact on local businesses and
their staff. Fortunately, due to the prompt
actions of specialist contractors, emergency
services and Environment Agency staff the
impact was limited and no long term damage
was caused.
‘All companies and householders have a duty
to carry and dispose of materials and waste
in a responsible manner that does not cause
pollution. If they do not then they may face
prosecution.
‘The effect of the smell in this case cannot
be underestimated. I have never smelt anything
worse. It seemed to permeate into everything
- it was so bad you could taste it.’
