Co Tyrone farmer fined £1,500 for polluting discharge to a waterway

A Co Tyrone farmer was today fined £1,500 plus £132.74 analysis costs and £25 Court Costs for making a polluting discharge to a waterway.

Mr Derek Allen, Drum Road, Cookstown, pleaded guilty at Dungannon Magistrates’ Court.

On 17 January 2007, an Officer from the Fisheries Conservancy Board for Northern Ireland, acting on behalf of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (formally the Environment and Heritage Service) found a polluting effluent entering a waterway from an adjacent field where slurry had been spread.

A sample taken at the time of the incident confirmed that the discharge contained poisonous, noxious and polluting matter which would have been potentially harmful to fish life in the receiving watercourse.

Notes to Editors

1. The charge was brought under Article 7 (1) a of the Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 with the offence of making a polluting discharge to a waterway, namely an unnamed tributary of the Drum River.
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