A FARMER who polluted the River Divelish with slurry has been ordered to pay £16,339 in fines and costs.
Dairy farmer Clifford Yeatman, of Lowbrook Farm, Belchawell, near Blandford, pleaded guilty at Weymouth Magistrates’ Court.
Slurry from the defendant’s herd of cows is used to power an anaerobic digester to produce energy. By-product digestate is stored in the farm’s slurry lagoon with other farm waste before it is spread as a fertiliser.
Yeatman was aware of a spillage of milk parlour washings on September 20 2012, but didn’t realise they had escaped into a nearby stream.
Agency officers witnessed a second pollution on the River Divelish when they returned on September 28 last year. On this occasion, the farm’s slurry lagoon was found to be overflowing to the river.
Yeatman, who has two previous convictions for water pollution, was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £6,189 costs, and a £150 victim surcharge.
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