A Co Tyrone business has been fined £5,000 for polluting a river.

Hillside Dairy Farms Ltd, at Camderry Road in Dromore, was charged with making a polluting discharge to a waterway in October 2022, and of making a discharge of trade or sewage effluent into a waterway between November 2022 and January 2023.

The charges followed a probe by Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) water quality inspectors at a tributary of the Owenreagh River.

They found sewage fungus – which can damage fish spawning sites and kills invertebrates on which fish feed on – on the riverbed and traced a silage effluent discharge to a storm manhole at the Hillside Dairy Farm site.

The waterway was found to be “grossly polluted” during a follow-up inspection the following month, and the pollution continued until repairs were made at the farm in January 2023.

At Omagh Magistrates’ Court on Monday, the company was fined a total of £5,000 plus an £15 Offenders Levy.

Source: Irish News 26th February 2024