{"id":399453,"date":"2026-04-15T09:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399453\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T09:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:10:07","slug":"river-test-diesel-pollution-costs-firm-more-than-4m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399453\/","title":{"rendered":"River Test diesel pollution costs firm more than \u00a34m"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a statement, the Environment Agency said the problem was caused by a failed underground valve that leaked into soil at Watson Fuels, otherwise known as WFL UK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said: &#8220;The issue was not immediately identified, as stock losses remained below the threshold for a full investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Although remedial action was taken once the leak was confirmed, heavy rainfall later caused the diesel to enter the river, resulting in harm to wildlife.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The agency said WFL had agreed to pay \u00a3350,000 to Wessex Rivers Trust for environmental improvements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Additionally, it will cover the Environment Agency&#8217;s costs of\u202f\u00a387,869.95.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said the sanction, known as an enforcement undertaking, avoided the cost of legal proceedings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">WFL has also spent \u00a33.8m on measures to prevent future incidents, including a rebuild of the Nursling site, the agency added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Agency spokesperson Dawn Theaker said: &#8220;This pollution incident was preventable and should not have happened. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The funds will enable habitat improvement in the local area, benefiting the environment and communities in Southampton.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a statement, the Environment Agency said the problem was caused by a failed underground valve that leaked&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-399453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}