Greenpeace protesters blockading the Edmonton incinerator site
Heard before His Honour Judge Mervyn Roberts
Crown Prosecution Service: Mr Christopher Ball QC and Mr Morris
Defending: Mr Owen Davies QC and Ms Judy Khan
The day started with the continuing cross-examination of Mr Steve Brown, Operations Director for London Waste Ltd. Mr Brown admitted that in the past London Waste Ltd had mixed bottom ash from the Edmonton Incinerator with fly ash but said that this practice stopped in August 2000. He also admitted that London Waste Ltd had been successfully prosecuted in 1998 by the Environment Agency over the illegal acceptance of certain kinds of clinical waste.
Mr Brown denied that the Environment Agency relied "almost exclusively" on pollution monitoring data supplied by London Waste Ltd when regulating the plant but accepted that apart from two occasions every year when the Environment Agency did their own tests, the data used for enforcement of pollution laws was provided by the company itself. Mr Brown conceded that dioxins are only monitored at the plant twice a year and that the Edmonton Incinerator had breached pollution limits on 19 occasions in the past three years for chemicals including hydrogen chloride and sulphur dioxide.
The next prosecution witness of the day was Mr Andrew Bailey, a steeplejack from Bailey Steeplejacks Company. He confirmed that his company did a survey of the Edmonton Incinerator chimney after the Greenpeace occupation and conducted certain remedial works for alleged "damage" that had occurred. The total bill for this work was
