All offences took place at the Amhuinnsuidhe Hatchery site on the Isle of Harris.

Marine Harvest Scotland Ltd was fined at Stornoway Sheriff Court yesterday for breaches of both water and waste legislation. The company was reported to the Procurator Fiscal by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

The company, which had a turnover of £87million last year, pled guilty to:

• breaching its water use licence conditions;

• an unauthorised discharge of untreated effluent to the Abhainn Mhor river;

• deposits of sludge from filters onto land;

• burning of plastic waste feed bags.

The case came to light in September 2006, when a SEPA officer carrying out routine sampling at the site discovered sewage fungus in the river. Further investigations found that Marine Harvest Scotland Ltd was in breach of conditions authorised in their Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (CAR) licence and that there was also an unauthorised discharge of untreated effluent.

Officers also found evidence that sludge from the settlement pond had been pumped onto the land, leaving it blackened. A large area of burnt land showed where waste feed bags had been burnt.

SEPA Western Isles Unit Manager, Stuart Baird said: “The offences to which Marine Harvest Scotland Ltd pled guilty resulted from the company’s failure to ensure that the hatchery was managed and operated in accordance with both its CAR licence and in compliance with other environmental legislation. SEPA considers that this case reinforces the need for effective management systems to be put in place, maintained and audited in order to prevent breaches of environmental legislation. It also demonstrates that there is a continued need for regulatory scrutiny of the fish farming industry."

Commenting after the case, a spokesperson for Marine Harvest said: "We take the breaches of consent at the Amhuinnsuidhe hatchery very seriously and sincerely regret that the failure of our treatment systems created this situation. When SEPA highlighted the issues in September 2006 we immediately improved our treatment systems, ensuring there would be no further repeat of these breaches.

"The breaches at Amhuinnsuidhe should not have occurred and we wish to apologise for these. We consider our environmental responsibilities to be a top business priority so we were extremely disappointed to be found lacking in these areas."

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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