Pollution from green waste or agricultural waste in reservoirs

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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT BY DEPUTY P.V.F. LE CLAIRE OF ST. HELIER

ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY, 10th OCTOBER 2006

Question

1. Has there been any contamination of reservoirs from leachate caused by green wasteor agricultural waste since 1995 and, ifso, what has been the remediation of these incidents and whathas it cost?
2. Howmany sites, if any, has the Planning andEnvironmentDepartmentmonitored and, how many,if any, does it continue to monitor, in relation to leachate contamination in Jersey from greenwaste and agricultural waste; howmuch,if anything, has this management and monitoring cost the Department since 1995 and how many manhours have been involved?

Answer

1. No incidents of direct pollutionof storage reservoirs caused bygreenwasteor agricultural waste have been reported toEnvironmental Protection at the Planning andEnvironmentDepartmentsince 1995. However, since 1995, a total of73 pollutionincidentsinvolving organic leachate or slurry have been reported to, and investigated by,Environmental Protection. In 46ofthese incidents, therewas indication ofrun-offoforganic leachate into surface streams or groundwater that maysubsequently have contaminated storage reservoirs with nutrients andotherpollutants. In many cases, the investigations led to enforcement action beingtaken undertheWaterPollution (Jersey) Law 2000 and remedial action, such as movingthewasteorimproving the storage on site, was undertaken by the landowner or occupier under the polluter pays' principle. It is difficult to quantify the monetary or officer time involved as this work is an integral part of the workof Environmental Protection, buteachincident involved at least several hoursof officer time.
2. In addition to the above investigations and monitoring, 2 sites continue tobemonitoredon a long-term regular basis.

S i nce the burial of more than 4,000 tonnes of potatoes at Beauport in 1992, 271 leachate samples have been

taken on site for analysis. Currently the Beauport leachate is sampled on a monthly basis, each sample takes about 45 minutes to collect, as the work is done as part of a larger sampling round. This equates to about 9 hours each year. Total monitoring and site visit time is estimated to be 400 hours since 1992.

T h e Crabbé composting site in St Mary continues to be monitored for groundwater contamination caused by

the composting process. The monitoring and sampling is carried out on a quarterly basis. Currently, the total time for the Department is 12  man hours each quarter or 48 man hours each year.

I t is expected that the monitoring programmes at Beauport and Crabbé will need to be continued for the

foreseeable future.