POLLUTING a Tockholes brook with "blood-red abattoir waste" has cost a firm £8,000.

Blackburn Magistrates imposed the fine on Land Feeds Environmental Ltd and ordered them to pay an additional £1,120 costs after the Preston firm pleaded guilty to two charges of polluting Shaw Brook, and one of treating controlled waste without a licence.

Jane Morgan, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told the court how a member of the public reported that Shaw Brook was frothy and a blood-red colour in December, 1996.

Agency pollution control officer Paul Parkinson went to investigate and noticed that the stream smelled of abattoir waste.

He spoke to Oliver Dewhurst, of Land Feeds Environmental, who was driving a tractor in a field just outside Tockholes. He confirmed that he had been spreading abattoir waste by injecting it into the soil. The waste had polluted drains in the field and discharged into Shaw Brook.

A sample of water from the stream revealed crude sewage was present.

Two days later the agency received another report that Shaw Brook was red and foaming and Mr Parkinson discovered that abattoir waste had this time been spread on the surface, against instructions he had given after the earlier pollution.

Land Feed Environmental had confirmed that the waste had been a mixture of abattoir and brewery waste.

The company's practice was to mix the two at the roadside before spreading. This amounted to "treating controlled waste" which can only be carried out under a Waste Management Licence, which the firm did not have.

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