A Llanidloes company has been fined more than £35,000 for breaching environmental permit conditions, contaminating a nearby stream.

Sundorne Products (Llanidloes) Limited appeared in court in Merthyr Tydfil for sentencing on Thursday after previously pleading guilty to two counts of breaching its permit between January 2016 and April 2017.

The company exceeded the permitted leachate head limits – liquid from landfill waste that can soak through and contaminate ground water – and failed to use appropriate measures to prevent or minimise emissions of landfill gas at their Bryn Posteg landfill site, near Llanidloes.

The company has an environmental permit from Natural Resources Wales that allows them to receive up to 75,000 tonnes of non-hazardous household and commercial waste every year.

The court heard that an investigation was launched at Bryn Posteg after 48 complaints of odour were reported by residents in January 2016.

In total, 423 complaints of odour were reported from January to March 2017.

In February 2016, NRW investigated groundwater discharge from the site and found it was “black and smelt strongly of leachate” while the “water in nearby Nant Bradnant was discoloured and also smelt of leachate”.

NRW said: “Samples showed sewage fungus over 3.5km downstream and a biological survey showed that the whole length of Nant Bradnant was impacted downstream of Bryn Posteg.”

NRW issued an enforcement notice in March 2016, ordering the company “to carry out several actions and improvements to make the site compliant with its permit conditions”, but a follow-up inspection in May 2016 found the orders “had been partially complied with”, while the company still “failed to reduce the leachate back to the permit limits”, “failed to install sufficient landfill gas extraction infrastructure” and “failed to use appropriate measures to control odour”.

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