Farmer fined for supplying unfit water
A farmer who supplied water to eight tenanted properties that was not fit for consumption will have to pay more than £36,000 in fines and costs.
Edward Fair, 55, of Peatswood Farm in Shropshire, was at one time taking three times the legal limit of the water, which had high nitrate levels, from a borehole on the farm.
He admitted the environmental offences, pleading guilty to one charge relating to water abstraction and nine charges relating nitrate pollution management.
At Telford magistrates court on Monday he was fined 6,000 and ordered him to pay £20,000 in costs, along with a £170 victim surcharge.
The charges were brought by the Environment Agency.
Agency investigators discovered that between May 2015 and April 2017, Fair had abstracted on average over 20,000 litres of water per day from a borehole on the farmland without an abstraction licence.
Between October 2016 and April 2017, Mr Fair was abstracting an average of 67,000 litres of water per day, more than three times the legal limit. This water was being used in farming activities but was also being supplied to eight nearby tenanted properties.
Evidence gathered by Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council between December 2014 and May 2016 revealed that the water supplied to these properties was failing quality standards for nitrates.
The court heart that a formal notice was served on in October 2015, requiring Fair to notify the residents of the supplied properties advising them that the water was not fit for consumption due to high nitrate levels. The notice was withdrawn in May 2016, as a result of improvements made to the supply infrastructure including installation of a chlorination dosing pump.
Because Peatswood Farm is in an area designated a nitrate vulnerable zone he was requed to plan and record farming activities, including the application of manures and fertilisers,under the Nitrate Pollution Prevention Regulations 2008.
He failed to produce records for 2014 and received a 28 per cent reduction in his Single Farm Payment subsidy for the year.
The court hear that Fair had no previous convictions and had sought out new professional advice and was working to improve his farming practices. It was claimed in court that the high nitrate levels in drinking water had been caused in-part by tenants removing nitrate filters installed within the properties because they caused a reduction in water pressure.
Water high in nitrates can lead to a lack of oxygen in the blood.
