{"id":961758,"date":"2026-05-15T14:54:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T14:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/961758\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T14:54:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T14:54:25","slug":"cornish-farmer-caused-so-much-pollution-1600-fish-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/961758\/","title":{"rendered":"Cornish farmer caused so much pollution 1,600 fish died"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around 2,300 gallons of digestate had entered the water from a tank<\/p>\n

A Cornish farmer has been told to pay out \u00a33,765 after a spill of digestate at his farm led to a fish kill in the River Ottery(Image: Environment Agency)<\/p>\n

A Cornish farmer caused so much pollution in a river that it killed over 1,600 fish.<\/p>\n

Truro<\/a> Magistrates Court heard that Norman Osborne, 57, of Tobarn, Jacobstow, operated a farm near Warbstow, which was the site of a major fish kill incident in 2022.<\/p>\n

Environment Agency officers responded to reports of dead fish in the River Ottery on 22 May 2022 and determined that an estimated 2300 gallons of digestate had entered the watercourse from a tank on Osborne\u2019s farm.<\/p>\n

Digestate is a wet slurry-like material from the anaerobic digestion of waste food and other organic wastes, which is used as a fertiliser. It is highly polluting and can have very high levels of ammonia and nitrogen.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dead fish included Atlantic Salmon, Brown Trout and Bullheads<\/p>\n

The Court heard that Osborne was transferring digestate from a tank to a tanker to spread on his farmland when a connecting hose broke.<\/p>\n

The spilt digestate ran down the road and entered the nearby watercourse.<\/p>\n

This was exacerbated by Osborne washing the spilt digestate into the watercourse. Osborne failed to report the incident to the Environment Agency.<\/p>\n

The spill will have caused high ammonia levels, and the watercourse was found to contain sludge and microplastics.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A total of 471 dead fish were counted, with the true number estimated to be 1,610<\/p>\n

3.5km of the watercourse was affected by the pollution. A total of 471 dead fish were counted, with the true number estimated to be 1,610. Dead fish included Atlantic Salmon, Brown Trout and Bullheads.<\/p>\n

The Court heard that two years after the pollution, fish populations had still not recovered to historic levels.<\/p>\n

Following Wednesday\u2019s hearing, Osborne was fined \u00a3215 after pleading guilty to causing a water discharge activity and was told to pay the Environment Agency\u2019s costs of \u00a33,550.<\/p>\n

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: \u201cThis pollution led to a major fish kill and lasting damage to the watercourse. Osborne\u2019s failure to swiftly report the incident to the Environment Agency exacerbated the significant impact of the spill.<\/p>\n

\u201cDigestate is highly polluting and should be handled with great care. If a pollution does occur, farmers must contact us as soon as possible so we can provide them with guidance on mitigation or containment and take action to prevent further harm to the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 2,300 gallons of digestate had entered the water from a tank A Cornish farmer has been told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":961759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,194686,16,15],"class_list":["post-961758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-truro","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116579170441064305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/961759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}