A FINTONA farmer has been convicted of polluting 1.5km of Owenreagh River with farm effluent.
Mr David Kenwell (38), Killyliss Road, Fintona, pleaded guilty to two charges of pollution at Omagh Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.
He was fined £1,000 with a £15 Offenders for both offences.
The Court heard that on August 2, 2022, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) Water Quality Inspectors (WQIs) received a report of a farm effluent entering an unnamed tributary of the Owenreagh River.
At the farm, the Inspectors discovered that an unlined sump had been constructed from permeable gravel and this construction was allowing silage effluent to escape and enter the waterway via a concrete pipe.
This incident was classified as of 'medium severity', where 1.5km of waterway was impacted by this discharge of silage effluent.
A tripartite statutory sample was collected from the discharge pipe and analysed.
The material represented by the sample contained poisonous, noxious or polluting matter which would have been potentially harmful to aquatic life in a receiving waterway.
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