A TOP environmental consultancy has been left red-faced after being fined the maximum £20,000 for a major pollution incident from its composting plant near St Ives.

Nearly half a million litres of filthy water was pumped out of the site at Woodhurst and ran into a nearby waterway, killing most of the invertebrates which lived there over a two- kilometre stretch.

Magistrates at Huntingdon told representatives of ADAS - a former Government agricultural advisory service - that any credit for a guilty plea had been used up by their decision not to send the case to Crown Court for sentence.

In addition to the maximum fine of £20,000, magistrates ordered the firm to pay the Environment Agency's costs of £3,367 and a further £100 in costs.

ADAS Holdings, of Wolverhampton, admitted polluting a tributary of the Cranbrook Drain at Woodhurst.

Presiding magistrate Susan Norton told the firm: "We do see it as significant pollution and it went on for a period of nearly 24 hours."

An employee pumped the waste on to a field at the site instead of into a special lagoon and the water ran into a pipe before pouring into the waterway.

After the hearing, Patrick Pierrepoint, ADAS business manager, told the News the incident was embarrassing, adding: "It will not happen again."

ADAS, which used to be part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food until it became part of the private sector, is the UK's largest provider of environmental and rural solutions and policy advice. It acquired the former Hensby Composts site in 2004.

Its website boasts: "ADAS environmental specialists have a hard-earned reputation for achieving a sensitive and sustainable balance between the needs of wildlife, the environment and man."

Anne-Lise McDonald, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told how inspectors from the agency saw a "black odorous liquid" running from the site. A dead fish was seen in the waterway and all invertebrates, except for air-breathing gnat larvae, had died over a considerable stretch.

"This incident had a significant impact on water purity over 1.5km," Ms McDonald said.

She told the court that the employee had forgotten to turn the pump off and it continued to run overnight, pumping out around 480,000 litres.

Peter Bond, for the firm, said: "This was, regrettably, very much a one-off incident."

He said ADAS had taken on long-serving staff when it acquired the business and needed to implement new procedures. It had taken longer than expected to find a manager and one was appointed just three days before the incident, before he had time to make any changes.

Mr Pierrepoint said the site was moving away from making mushroom compost and into processing kerbside waste collected by councils, as well as research and development.

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