AN OWNER of a site described as “the worst performing in England and Wales” in complying with its regulations has been fined £200,000.

Jacqueline Powell, director at Wormtech Limited was found guilty of breaching the conditions of the company’s environmental permit and storing waste in a manner likely to cause harm to human health or pollution to the environment.

Company director Jonathan Westwood previously pleaded guilty to the same charges, and company director Robert Baynton to the offences of breaching the conditions of the environmental permit. Westwood was ordered to pay £100,000 compensation.

Now, Powell has been ordered to cough up £200,000 after Judge Neil Bidder QC made a confiscation order of £60,000, to be dealt with as a compensation order, along with a further compensation order of £140,000.

Wormtech Limited operated a compost recycling facility based in Caerwent which operated under an environmental permit from Natural Resources Wales’s (NRW) predecessor, Environment Agency Wales.

In 2010 the company was prosecuted for causing a water pollution. The company pleaded guilty and was fined for this offence.

During routine inspections in early 2012, officers visiting the site found evidence of compost leachate leaking from storage areas at the site onto the surrounding land.

As a result of this, in July 2012, Environment Agency Wales served a legal notice on the company requiring them to comply with the conditions in their environmental permit.

Further site visits were carried out and found that leachate continued to seep through the walls of buildings on site and onto the ground. The agency later served a second notice on the company, requiring it to stop accepting both food and green waste onto the premises.

The area in which the company’s site was situated is near a particularly sensitive aquifer, the Great Spring, which has a drinking water abstraction point.

In October 2012, the company ceased trading and the remaining company director Jacqueline Powell left the site, with approximately 20,000 tonnes of composting waste remaining.

Due to concerns that leachate could continue to escape from the site and enter nearby watercourses, the Environment Agency stepped in and removed approximately 4,000 tonnes of what was considered to be the most hazardous waste.

Following the conviction of the directors, the prosecution case was that money that should have been spent on complying with the environmental permit and preventing the pollution actually went into the pockets of the directors themselves.

There was also a substantial claim for compensation due to the public money spent on dealing with the pollution at the site in Caerwent, in excess of £600,000.

Jon Goldsworthy, from Natural Resources Wales said: “The actions taken by the company and its directors in this case caused serious pollution to the nearby environment, as well as placing the health of local people at risk.

“In 2012, the site was thought to be the worst performing site in England and Wales in terms of its failure to comply with the conditions in its permit.

“In addition to this, the poor condition in which the site was left meant that the taxpayer had to pick up the bill to remove waste from the site – money that could have been directed to other front line services that people rely on.

“We will always try to work with companies to make sure they comply with the conditions in their permit, but in cases like this, we have to step in and take legal action to ensure the safety of the local environment and community.”