BUPA
Care Homes Ltd has been ordered to pay more
than £11,000 in fines and costs for
discharging poor quality effluent from a
residential nursing home at Tetbury in Gloucestershire.
A court heard how effluent
from Ilsom House was discharged into a sensitive
groundwater area after the owners failed
to properly maintain the home’s sewage treatment
plant.
The area is sensitive
because groundwater around Tetbury is used
for local drinking water supplies. This
has led to it being designated a Special
Protection Zone. The pollution occurred
less than half a mile from ‘Wor Well’, the
source of the River Avon.
Ilsom House is not connected
to mains drainage and all the sewage effluent
from the home, including the on site laundry,
is treated in its sewage treatment plant
before being discharged into the ground.
BUPA Care Homes has
a discharge consent, issued by the Environment
Agency, that sets the standard for the quality
of treated effluent and amount that could
be discharged each day.
On May 22, 2008 an Agency officer took a
routine sample of the discharge from the
treatment works. The effluent was ‘cloudy
and discoloured and had a strong smell’
and found to be of extremely poor quality.
Further samples were taken on July 28, 2008
and August 14, 2008 and were likewise cloudy
and smelling strongly. Each sample was significantly
below the standard required under the consent.
The first sample had
a Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) of 518mg/litre
– more than 25 times the permitted limit
of 20 mg/l. The BOD is a measure of the
organic strength of the effluent – its potential
to pollute. Levels of suspended solids were
also well in excess of the consent limit
– 194 mg/l instead of 30 mg/l. The ammonia
level was 44.8 mg/l compared to the permitted
maximum of 20 mg/l.
The BOD of the second,
July sample was 479mg/l - almost 24 times
that permitted and that of the August sample
was 372mg/l – over 18 times that permitted.
The company asked for a further offence,
a sample taken in December 2008, to be taken
into consideration.
The nursing home’s maintenance
engineer said the treatment plant was looked
after by a company called Kee Process Ltd
and the treatment plant was de-sludged every
six months. Nevertheless, staff on site
should have checked the effluent on a regular
basis – in fact they had been advised by
the Agency they should perform daily checks
and keep a record of them. But this was
not done. The court found that BUPA had
been careless in their lack of management
supervision and training.
‘BUPA Care Homes failed
to ensure the sewage treatment plant was
maintained and operating properly and showed
little regard for the effects their activities
at Tetbury were having on the environment,’
said Laurence Mathew for the Environment
Agency.
‘Checks on the treatment plant were done
on a very ad hoc basis and there was inadequate
training of staff to monitor the plant’s
performance. This meant the owners didn’t
know whether the plant was operating properly
or not. Such poor management is unacceptable,
particularly in a Special Protection Zone
where it is even more important sewage effluent
is treated to the required standard,’ said
Laurence Mathew.
Appearing before Cheltenham
magistrates on Monday (April 20), BUPA Care
Homes of Bridge House, Outwood Lane, Horsforth,
Leeds was fined £8,000 and ordered
to pay £3,125 costs after admitting
three offences under the Water Resources
Act 1991 of contravening the conditions
of its consent to discharge at Ilsom House,
Tetbury and asking for one similar offence
to be taken into consideration.
Environment Agency to
play key role in delivering carbon-free
coal power for the UK
Environment Agency says the Government’s
decision to set the demonstration of ‘carbon
capture’ as a condition for new coal-fired
power stations is the most significant environmental
measure since the introduction of the Climate
Change Act
The Chairman of the
Environment Agency, Lord Smith, today said
that the Government’s decision to set the
demonstration of ‘carbon capture’ as a condition
for new coal-fired power stations is the
most significant environmental measure since
the introduction of the Climate Change Act.
He said that carbon
capture for coal power is a key element
of a sustainable energy policy – which includes
improved energy efficiency, combined heat
and power, carbon-free coal and gas, safe
nuclear power and a big increase in renewable
energy generation.
And he welcomed the
key role that the Environment Agency will
play in bringing the new technology into
operation by assessing the effectiveness
and commercial viability of CCS.
He was responding to
the Government’s plans to establish up to
four Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) demonstration
projects and setting out the conditions
for ‘clean coal’ electricity in the future.
Coal power is currently one of the dirtiest
forms of electricity generation – producing
over 100 million tonnes of CO2 emissions
annually.
But carbon capture and
storage, which involves capturing the carbon
dioxide emitted from the burning of fossil
fuels like coal and storing it deep underground,
has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions
from coal by 90%.
The Environment Agency
has previously warned that emissions from
coal power stations must be dramatically
reduced if the UK is to meet its 2050 target
of an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions.
Other measures announced
today include:
up to four CCS demonstration
projects proposed by 2020,
conditions on existing coal fired power
stations to retrofit CCS technology within
five year of the Environment Agency assessing
it as technically and commercially viable,
looking to introduce an emissions performance
standard to implement these conditions.
Lord Chris Smith, Chairman of the Environment
Agency, said:
“This is the most important
environmental decision the Government has
taken, bar the Climate Change Act itself.
We need to reduce dramatically the emissions
from coal power stations and carbon capture
technology offers real hope of a new era
of ‘clean coal’. It is an essential element
of any sensible energy policy for the next
20 years.
“This has the potential
to change the face of power generation and
enable the UK to sell this technology to
the rest of the world. I’m determined that
the Environment Agency will play a major
role using our expertise in determining
its effectiveness.
“We have been for pressing
for the introduction of Carbon Capture and
Storage technology for some time and will
do all we can to ensure it is developed
as soon as possible to help us meet the
ambitious carbon emissions reduction target
of 80% by 2050.”
