NI AD company fined £6,000 after ‘slurry-like’ discharge

A Northern Ireland based company that runs an anaerobic digestion (AD) facility in Co. Derry has been fined £6,000 after a discharge of “slurry-like” material.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) confirmed that Greenan Generation Ltd was convicted at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court for offences under water quality laws.

The company pleaded guilty and was fined a total of £6,000 plus £15 Offenders Levy.

On November 7, 2024, water quality inspectors from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) responded to a report of a slurry spill on Carmoney Road, Eglinton.

Upon arrival, the NIEA Inspectors observed slurry-like material flowing along the roadway and then entering a roadside gully, adjacent to nearby premises.

According to DAERA, the discharge was traced to an access lane serving an AD facility operated by Greenan Generation Ltd.

The AD feed material had entered road gullies and a piped drainage system, where it impacted approximately 2.3km of an unnamed tributary of the River Faughan, “confirming the significant environmental impact caused by the discharge,” DAERA said.

The incident was caused by a technical fault in the digestate feed mixing system at the AD plant.

The automated shut-off mechanism had failed to activate, resulting in the digestate feed overflowing from its tank for a number of hours.

As part of the investigation, statutory samples collected on November 7 and 14, 2024, were analysed.

The results confirmed the presence of poisonous, noxious, or polluting substances in the waterway.

These materials posed a potential threat to aquatic life in the receiving waterway, according to DAERA.

Greenan Generation was fined £3,000 for an offence on November 7, 2024, and fined £3,000 for an offence on November 14, 2024.

Under Northern Irish law, it is an offence to make a polluting discharge into a waterway, and to make a discharge of trade or sewage effluent into a waterway.

Farmer fined after fish kill

Also this week, a court in Northern Ireland fined a farmer for a water pollution offence that resulted in a fish kill.

The farmer was convicted at Antrim Magistrates’ Court sitting in Ballymena.

The 52-year-old was convicted and was fined £1,000, plus a £15 Offenders Levy.

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