Animal charity seeks more pollution fines

From the archive, first published Thursday 5th May 2005.

Wildlife rescue worker wants people to be held responsible and fined for small-scale pollution as well as major disasters like oil spills.

Trevor Weeks, who runs the East Sussex Wildlife Rescue and Ambulance Service, says dealing with animals affected by pollution costs his charity thousands of pounds a year.

Under current legislation individuals or companies who damage the environment can be taken to court and ordered to pay costs for the clean-up operation.

This usually only happens after major incidents, which tend to be dealt with by the Environment Agency (EA).

Mr Weeks said even if people were fined the money never filtered down to charities like his own. He said: "The law should be changed so it is not just the EA which gets costs."

This week a female swan died after coming into contact with raw sewage floating in Shoreham Harbour, possibly flushed into the water from a boat. The swan was one of a pair who had nested in the harbour for at least eight years.

Mr Weeks was called out when the bird was found distressed and excreting a foul-smelling liquid in the road. The eggs it was carrying had died inside it. Mr Weeks took it to the Swan Sanctuary in Egham, Surrey, where it later died.

Dorothy Beeson, founder of the Swan Sanctuary, said the sewage spill had contributed to the swan's death. She said: "I have been doing this for 25 years and in the past ten years we have been seeing a lot more incidents like this. I always seem to be washing filthy animals. We deal with at least 52 cases a year.

It gets me very angry. When it is just the little incidents, nobody pays anything because they are not so heavily investigated."

A spokeman for the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs said courts had been reluctant to prosecute in cases of minor pollution because the penalties were so heavy. He said: "We are looking into the possibility of taking cases like this through the civil courts instead of the criminal courts so we can get more prosecutions."

The EA recorded 3,952 incidents of pollution in Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in 2003.

A spokesman said pollution fines only covered the cost of its investigations so there was no extra money available for wildlife charities which helped with clear-ups.

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