The director of a composting firm in South Wales which has been forced to close with the loss of 19 jobs has accused the Environment Agency of strangling her business.
Jackie Powell claims that the Agencys failure to work with Wormtech to address concerns over leachate forced it to cease operations in September 2012. She now expects the firm to go into liquidation next month.
In July 2012, the Agency suspended Wormtechs environmental permit after it found a serious risk of leachate from compost at the companys site at Caerwent in Monmouthshire contaminating groundwater and surface water.
The company was then served a notice explaining that it would not be be allowed to handle waste at the site until it carried out improvement works to its building and concrete pads.
Speaking to letsrecycle.comthis week(October 24), Ms Powell said that the works would have cost 100,000 as a minimum and there was no way the company could afford them while it was not allowed to take any waste on site and so had no income.
She said: We did offer them [The Environment Agency] a solution. If they allowed us to take some material on site so we had some income we would have done the work they wanted but they said they could not partially lift the notice.
Risk
Ms Powell stressed that there had been no actual incident of contamination at the Wormtech site, but that the Agency had just deemed there to be a risk.
She said: I have had to make 19 people redundant and close a company that has been going for ten years based on risk.
We tried to find a way around it but without an income we were strangled. I think the Agency has been totally unreasonable. They have lost a lot of people their jobs and affected all the companies we deal with, as there is a trickle down affect.
‘We tried to find a way around it but without an income we were strangled. I think the Agency has been totally unreasonable.’
Jackie Powell, Wormtech
Commenting on the case, a spokeswoman for the Agency said that it had taken action in July because it had grown increasingly concerned about the management of the Wormtech site and the fact it has not been complying with its permit and impact this could have on local watercourses.
The spokeswoman added that the Agency was now removing leachate from the site after Wormtech failed to do so.
She said: To make sure the environment is protected, we are managing leachate levels on the site by removing it ourselves, although this is remains the responsibility of the company.
Our investigation into the company continues and we are considering what further action we will take.
The Caerwent site has both in-vessel and open windrow composting facilities capable of processing up to 25,000 tonnes of organic waste a year.
Contracts
Prior to Wormtechs permit suspension, the company processed food and green waste on behalf of Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen and Rhonda Cynon Taf councils.
A spokesman for Monmouthshire council explained that it has formally ended its contract with Wormtech last Friday.
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He said: After Wormtech had their permit suspended they made alternative arrangements for us for about a month or so. At the end of August we got a telephone call saying they would no longer be able to do that with immediate effect so we had to sort something out quickly. The waste is now going to Veolia in England. We are continuing with that interim arrangement but are putting together a tender for a new contract.
The spokesman said the council would be seeking to recover costs from Wormtech.
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