{"id":44095,"date":"2014-06-24T10:42:30","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T10:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=a8afdfc84e9ac123f08abe7c1d4daac4"},"modified":"2014-06-24T10:42:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T10:42:30","slug":"press-release-slurry-pollution-costs-beccles-farmer-almost-12000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=44095","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Slurry pollution costs Beccles farmer almost \u00a312,000"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Lowestoft Magistrates\u2019 Court has fined him a total of \u00a36,000 with \u00a35,839 costs and \u00a3120 victim surcharge for the pollution incidents.<\/p>\n<p>He pleaded guilty to his partnership business FJ Godfrey &amp; Son allowing slurry to overflow from a storage lagoon in April and letting it run off land through an unknown field drain after spreading in May.<\/p>\n<p>The slurry turned the water dark brown and made it smell, prompting reports to the Environment Agency whose officers then investigated.<\/p>\n<h4 id=\"same-watercourse\">Same watercourse<\/h4>\n<p>Mrs Claire Corfield, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told magistrates the first pollution happened when dirty water overtopped the slurry storage lagoon, ran across a field and went into the tributary during exceptional winter rainfall.<\/p>\n<p>In May slurry ran off a field into the same watercourse after spreading on one of the farmer\u2019s fields.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Corfield said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">The lagoon was poorly maintained and the defendant failed to carry out routine checks. There were no clear procedures for preventing an overflow.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Since the incidents the company \u2013 a partnership between Godfrey, who ran the farm day to day, and his sister \u2013 has increased its storage space.<\/p>\n<p>After the hearing Environment Agency officer Ben Marshall said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Although it was an exceptionally wet winter, it still remains the responsibility of farmers to prevent polluting nearby watercourses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">These incidents caused long-term pollution by highly polluting dirty water and slurry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twice in the spring of 2013 dairy farmer Gerald George Godfrey polluted a stream close to his land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}