EPA Prosecutes Castlemahon Food Products

The EPA prosecuted Castlemahon Food Products, a well-known chicken processing company, for the fourth time on Monday, 20th December 2004. The company pleaded guilty to offences under the EPA Acts, 1992 and 2003 in Listowel District Court as a result of several breaches of the conditions of their integrated pollution control (IPC) licence.

• Their operations caused odour nuisance to neighbouring residents;
• They increased the risk of creating further odour nuisance by
  • Storing offal in uncovered skips in an open yard prior to processing instead of inside the storage building;
  • And in not repairing a damaged door on the rendering intake area.
• They exposed local groundwater to potential pollution when they failed to protect tank and drum storage areas from leakage.
• They failed to install equipment to
  • Control and monitor emissions, which meant that they didn’t take samples or report to the EPA on some of their emissions.
  • Warn of potential spillages from their wastewater treatment plant.

After hearing evidence from two OEE inspectors, the Court imposed fines totalling €3,600 and the EPA’s costs of €8,925 were also awarded.

Castlemahon Food Products is primarily involved in the slaughtering and processing of poultry in addition to the rendering of poultry off-cuts/blood at its site in Castlemahon, Co Limerick. The company was issued an IPC licence for the rendering of animal by-products on 25 September 1996.

This prosecution was taken following the outcome of site investigations undertaken by the Office of Environmental Enforcement and the receipt of odour complaints from a number of residents of Castlemahon.