Veolia fined over 100,000 for toxic fumes

The company was fined £101,000 and ordered to pay £65,000 costs after an incident at the facility on April 27, 2006 caused the release of toxic fumes which led to four members of staff having to receive medical treatment and several members of the public reporting side effects.

Veolia ES pleaded guilty to eight charges which were brought against it in a joint prosecution by the Environment Agency (EA) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

And, since the incident, the firm has completed a full review of its procedures and introduced safeguards to ensure a similar incident never occurs again.

Licence

On the date in question, the Bootle site was found to have breached a number of the conditions of its waste management licence, including accepting waste which it was not permitted to hold and then storing it with another chemical substance.

A resulting reaction led to toxic fumes being released, which affected both members of staff at the facility and the public.

The Agency has said the situation was made worse because the company's emergency plans were not followed, were “inadequate” and hindered the emergency services.

Commenting on the case, the EA's Mark Easedale said: “This incident highlights the importance of ensuring correct procedures are followed to ensure there is no harm to the environment when hazardous waste is being handled. This was a serious incident which could easily have been avoided. ”

And, HSE inspector Daniel Longdon claimed that it was only down to luck that the incident hadn't had an even more severe impact.

“This prosecution should act as a warning to waste treatment operators. This was a totally avoidable incident had the proper procedures been in place and it was only through good fortune that the consequences were not more serious,” he said.

A Veolia Environmental Services' spokesperson said:

“We regret our involvement in this case, which is an isolated incident. We have cooperated fully with the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency throughout their investigations.

“We consider any infringements to be wholly unacceptable and we recognise that in order to maintain these standards we must never be complacent. We have put in place new procedures to help prevent this type of incident being repeated in the future.”