A COMPOSTING company has been ordered to pay out £11,848 after admitting responsibility for causing “significant” pollution to Moors River.

Bosses at Parley company Eco Sustainable Solutions appeared at Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court in September to plead guilty to one charge of causing or knowingly permitting a water discharge contrary to the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.

And the company has now been sentenced for the offence, discovered in

December 2013 when a report of pollution flowing into the river at East Parley was made to the Environment Agency.

It is the second time Eco Sustainable Solutions has contravened environmental

law in less than two years.

At the time of the newest offence, the company – owned by Trelawney Dampney – was composting green waste and food waste in two separate operations.

The food waste was composted in sealed vessels, which, as it broke down, produced a highly polluting liquid called leachate.

Environmental permits state that any leachate produced during composting operations must be directed to a foul sewer for treatment.

An investigating officer from the Environment Agency discovered a ditch full of a foul-smelling black liquid flowing into the Moors River.

Aquatic plants in the river downstream of the ditch were also found to be covered in a sewage fungus for more than two miles.

The river is classified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The leak of effluence occurred after a domestic waste pipe, not designed to carry pollutants such as leachate, ruptured.

It was classed as a “category one incident” by the agency.

Later tests showed oxygen levels in the ditch and river downstream to be severely depleted and ammonia levels to be far higher than normal.

This would have eventually wiped out aquatic life in the ditch and cut river water quality to a dangerous level.

Magistrates in Bournemouth have now fined the company £7,500 and ordered it to pay costs of £4,348. The company will also pay a £120 victim surcharge.

Mr Dampney said the incident was a “genuine accident” caused by a third party contractor.

Trelawney Dampney, the managing director of Eco Sustainable Solutions, said: "Eco Sustainable Solutions was totally blameless in this incident and we are at a complete loss to understand why the Environment Agency considered it a sensible use of public money to pursue this matter through the courts. We note that the magistrates found that Eco had very low - or even no - culpability in the matter.

"The incident occurred when a contractor who was not working for Eco struck a pipe taking effluent to a local sewerage works. It was not on land controlled by Eco but because the liquid was generated by Eco the company was deemed to be guilty.

"Even though the incident did not happen on Eco's land we did everything possible to clean up the spillage once the incident was brought to our attention. This was done in full and we are now in the process of recovering our costs from the contractor.

"At a time of severe funding issues in the public sector I really do question why the Environment Agency thought it was in the public's best interest to tie up so much time and resources in pursuing this prosecution against Eco."