One of UK’s biggest dairy firms fined £1.5m for polluting Cornwall river

theguardian.com:

One of the UK’s biggest dairy firms has been fined £1.5m for repeatedly polluting a river near its Cornwall factory and causing local residents to suffer years of noxious smells – but the problems are continuing.

Dairy Crest was sentenced on Thursday at Truro crown court for repeatedly breaching its environmental permit at Davidstow creamery in Camelford. The site, the UK’s largest dairy processing facility, makes Cathedral City cheese, Clover and Country Life.

The court heard how in 2016 Dairy Crest began to install cutting-edge equipment to process whey that could then be sold to baby formula manufacturers and as a probiotic food additive.

However, the equipment did not work as it was meant to. Over several years the company dumped liquid waste, suspended solids and “biological sludge” into the River Inny, raising its nutrient levels and killing trout and salmon. Part-treated effluent also leaked on to nearby land. In one incident, treated effluent from the creamery was released into the River Inny containing a biocide that killed hundreds of fish.

At the sentencing hearing, at which the Dairy Crest CEO, Tom Atherton, was present, the company blamed some of the problems on contractors’ design of new plant equipment.

But Judge Simon Carr was critical of the company’s reaction and said its senior and middle management had been involved at every stage and should have responded better. He noted that some of those responsible for managing the site’s wastewater system felt “intimidated and bullied” and criticised the fact that equipment continued to be used even after so many failures.

While Dairy Crest described the project as an economic failure, the Environment Agency (EA) argued in court that the primary factor behind the