Polluting farmer who turned river toxic escapes £40,000 fine

A ROGUE fruit farmer pumped dirty water from a migrant workers' campsite kitchen into a tributary of the River Tay, despite repeated warnings from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Ammonia levels were 70 times higher than standard in the stream receiving the outflow from the illegal Bulgarian workers' kitchen.

Perth Sheriff Court heard how soft fruit farmer David Leslie allowed effluent to be pumped into the waterway untreated for three months.

The court was told that Mr Leslie, whose turnover had been 10 million the year before the incident, defied formal warnings from Sepa on at least five occasions.

Under the company name of Peter Leslie & Sons, the fruit farmer at Scones of Lethendy, near Perth, admitted discharging waste from a kitchen between 5 August and 12 November, 2009.

The court was told that the effluent - which produced 55 times the normal biochemical demand on the river water - was poured into a tributary of Gelly Burn, which leads to the Tay.

Fiscal depute Rebecca Kynaston said: "There were kitchen facilities in the campsite for the use of seasonal workers. There were 200 to 250 people using the kitchen facilities.

"Sepa attended on 5 August 2009 as part of an investigation. They found a polluting discharge from a pipe directly into the water course. It resulted in a plume of grey material in the water course.

"It was pure effluent. Almost all of the flow in the water course at the time was made up of effluent. It was brought to the attention of staff and Mr Leslie."

Mrs Kynaston said the ammonia in the water downstream was recorded at 44 mgs per litre - 73 times the 0.6 mgs level found in good quality river water.

"There was no treatment at all for the effluent. It went straight down drains into the water course. In addition to foodstuffs and dishwater, cleaning fluids were also being put down the drains."

She said Sepa officers visited several times and warned Mr Leslie to disconnect the offending pipe but he failed to do so. The operation, which had been struggling financially, went out of business by the end of 2009.

"Sepa were not aware of the company making any effort to stop discharge of the effluent," Mrs Kynaston said."It was the closure of the camp after November 2009 which led to the discharge being ceased."

Solicitor John McLaughlin, said despite turnover of 10m in 2008, the company got into financial trouble, after receiving a 200,000 bill from HM Inland Revenue to cover workers' tax and national insurance.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said the maximum sentence was a 40,000 fine, but accepted that the company had been "caught in a situation" and limited the fine to 500.

In 2009, David Leslie Fruits Ltd became the first employer in the UK convicted of gangmaster offences after the UK Borders Agency rounded up 250 Bulgarians working illegally in Scotland. A multi-agency raid on the farm - which supplied Tesco and Sainsbury's - discovered workers living in cramped metal containers with no running water.