BOSSES at an East Lancashire paper company are facing a bill of almost £55,000 after a chemical leak from its Blackburn mill polluted three local rivers.

The incident, affecting the Rivers Roddlesworth, Darwen and Ribble in January last year, led to Sappi (UK) Ltd being convicted of pollution charges for the sixth time, with five of the offences relating to Blackburn Mill, Feniscowles. The company was fined £17,500 and ordered to pay costs of £37,440. It's claim for costs from central funds was refused. The company today pledged to work with the Agency to make sure there is no repeat incident.

Preston Crown Court was told the company had nothing to do with the death of 10,000 fish following the incident.

But it did plead guilty to polluting controlled waters.

The firm's not guilty plea to causing pollution which could be poisonous to fish was accepted by the prosecution.

Mr William Peter Rankine, prosecuting on behalf of the Environment Agency, said that in January 1998 a discharge was found in a tunnel carrying the River Roddlesworth from the company's site. It was a substance called Chemisolv used to bind materials in trade effluent.

The leak was discovered by a worker who happened to slip in it. Two temporary repairs were made on the pipe.

Mr Rankine said there was no system for inspecting pipes or alarm system to warn of a leak. He added: "The defendants say there was something else in the water that caused the fish to die. The prosecution cannot disprove that as a fact."

Recorder Andrew Edis QC said Sappi had five similar convictions, four relating to Blackburn Mill.

Mr Edis said: "This company has failed persistently to prevent discharge of effluent into the rivers around its premises."

The Recorder said he accepted that measures had now been put in place at the mill. He added: "I take a very dim view indeed of efforts to mislead the Environment Agency's employees which appear to have been made in the early stages of the investigation."

Jan Willem Merkx, the mill director said today: "The company will participate at a high level with the Environment Agency to work towards implementing systems that avoid a re-occurrence of such an incident."

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