The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has warned companies who break environmental laws that the true costs of their actions could be very high.



At its meeting on 14 March, SEPA?s Board noted reports on 5 prosecutions which have recently been resolved in Courts in Aberdeen, Dunfermline, Stirling and Airdrie (see below). Welcoming the successful outcomes to these cases, Board members noted that fines ranged from £1000 - £16000, but that this was by no means the only cost to offending companies. Added to the costs of fines and court actions was the impact of bad publicity on their corporate reputation, and on their quality accreditation systems. Most significantly, the costs of cleaning up the resulting pollution have to be met by the polluters. This can amount to many thousands of pounds.

Speaking after the meeting, Board Chairman Ken Collins said:

"SEPA always tries to work with business and industry to prevent pollution before it happens, but we don?t hesitate to use our enforcement powers when we need to. These cases illustrate the point - we do investigate pollution incidents, we do catch the culprits and it does cost them dear.

"Our message is clear - causing pollution is an offence, and polluters must pay the price. It is in everyone?s interests for businesses of all kinds to work with SEPA to stop pollution happening in the first place. That saves them money and, more importantly, saves the environment.

"We also encourage members of the public to use our emergency hotline number to report pollution incidents to us so we can minimise the damage and investigate the causes."

The SEPA emergency hotline for reporting pollution incidents operates 24 hours, 365 days - 0800 80 70 60.

List of recent successful prosecutions
Reports were included in the Board papers on the following cases:

· Barratt Construction, Ellon, Aberdeenshire: fined £2000 in Aberdeen Sheriff Court on 21 January for contamination of the River Ythan by 600 gallons of diesel from their premises. Clean up costs estimated at £16,000 plus the cost of 10,000 fish to restock the river.
· Coflexip Stena Offshore Ltd, Aberdeen: fined £1000 at Aberdeen Sheriff Court for allowing trade effluent to pollute the Elrick Burn.
· Alexander G Watson, Inverkeithing, fined £2500 at Dunfermline Sheriff Court on 11 January for failing to apply for a waste management licence for his vehicle dismantling yard despite being made aware of the necessity to do so.
· Snowie Ltd, Stirlingshire, fined £3000 at Stirling Sheriff Court on 23 February for disposing of waste in a manner likely to cause environmental pollution. The incident involved the spreading of pot ale on a field, causing run-off into a tributary of the River Teith.
· GM Mining, Drumshangie Opencast Coal site, Greengairs, N Lanarkshire: fined £16000 at Airdrie Sheriff Court on 7 January in connection with five pollution incidents between October 1998 and January 1999.

SEPA Enforcement Policy
SEPA enforces a number of different environmental laws relating to water and air pollution, waste management and radioactive substances. It has powers, for instance, to investigate pollution incidents, issue warning letters, issue formal enforcement or prohibition notices, review or revoke licences and report cases to the Procurators Fiscal for prosecution. A leaflet on the policy is available on the SEPA Website or free from SEPA Public Affairs. Details of enforcement actions and successful prosecutions are set out each year in SEPA?s Annual Reports, and can be found on the SEPA Website >www.sepa.org.uk<.