Following a large chemical blaze in Lancashire, which closed two motorways, an international waste management company has been fined £150,000.
Sections of two motorways in the North east of England (the M6 and M55) were shut for several hours during the morning commute (2 July 2007), while 66 firefighters tackled a serious fire at the Red Scar industrial estate, Preston. More than 132,000 litres of chemicals were set alight, and firefighters reported that saw drums were seen "rocketing" into the air and off the site. Despite two people being on site at the time of the incident, tobody was harmed.
Veolia ES Cleanaway (UK) Ltd was fined £150,000 in December 2009 for two offences under the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 (DSEAR) and was also ordered to pay £90,000 in costs. This case followed a 15-month joint investigation by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), the Environment Agency and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.
The Court heard that the fire started just after 6am in an open area of the site (used to store drums of chemicals) and was not extinguished until mid-afternoon. HSE inspectors said that the fire may have been started by lithium batteries igniting. The area is understood to have been dedicated to the storage of flammable solids, but in the immediate vicinity were flammable liquids as well as toxic and corrosive substances that had not been properly segregated, a factor that helped the fire to escalate. The lithium batteries, which can ignite spontaneously if they come into contact with water or suffer impact, were stored in yellow bins for clinical waste.
According to the HSE inspector and lead investigator (Mr Peter Gray): "The storage was inadequate because that increased the risk of self-ignition. The batteries should have been kept in robust, water-tight containers and kept segregated well away from other flammable and combustible materials". The company had no specific risk assessment in place to deal with the storage and handling of lithium batteries and workers were lacking awareness of the specific risks associated with the batteries and of dealing with fire and explosion hazards in general.
Following the incident, the HSE issued an Improvement Notice requiring the revision and rewriting of the site operating procedures and further enforcement notices, covering breaches of fire safety regulations, were also issued by Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.
Veolia admitted breaching reg. 6(3) and 9(1) of the DSEAR by failing to take appropriate measures to control the storage of dangerous substances (£100,000 fine), and by failing to provide suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training for its employees (£50,000 fine).
The closing of the two motorways was prompted by fears that smoke and fumes would travel if the wind changed direction. However, the emergency services managed to prevent the fire from spreading beyond the site perimeter.
A spokesperson for Veolia Environmental Services said: “We regret this incident and voluntarily closed the site for an extensive period afterwards, while we worked closely with the HSE and other regulators to put in place a number of improvement measures. We have reviewed and amended our site operating procedures and transport and storage protocols to ensure that they exceed legal requirements. In addition, we invested a significant sum to upgrade our storage infrastructure and have also substantially extended the existing training programme for operatives at the site.”