WASTE tipped on land above Wayoh reservoir at Entwistle posed a major pollution threat to Bolton's drinking water supplies.

The Environment Agency and North West Water spent more than £60,000 on a "damage limitation exercise" after discovering between seven and nine hundred tons of polluted material which had been transported from a Bolton site, a court heard.

Blackburn magistrates heard that the waste was owned by Red Rose training Limited, of Kearsley Business Park, Europa Way, Stoneclough.

The company, which has now ceased trading, entered guilty pleas to disposing of controlled waste in a way likely to cause pollution or harm to human health and depositing the same waste without a licence. The company was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay a contribution to costs of £2,550. Charges of permitting the controlled waste to be deposited without a licence and keeping the waste without a licence were brought against John Malcolm Wolfenden of Three Acres Farm, Entwistle Hall Lane, Entwistle, and a company of which he is a director, Edgworth Agencies Ltd. Neither were represented in court and their cases were adjourned until December 7.

Matthew Cottrell, prosecuting on behalf of the Environment Agency, said the waste tipped at the farm was found to contain toluene, which can be poisonous in drinking water

"We are not alleging that Wayoh reservoir was contaminated, but we are saying this incident had the potential to contaminate drinking water supplies," said Mr Cottrell.

"The Environment Agency and North West Water spent £60,000 digging a trench between the site and the reservoir and we will be seeking to recover this amount through the civil courts." Fraser Young, defending, said Red Rose Training had never intended the affair to be a waste disposal exercise. The company had some land in Bolton which they wanted to convert into a hard standing area for their HGV training vehicles, and to achieve this the land needed to be levelled.

They placed an advert in the Bolton Evening News for someone who needed top soil and found Mr Wolfenden who needed it to improve his farm.

"My client understood that all the necessary authorities had been obtained for tipping what they believed to be nothing other than top and sub-soil," said Mr Young.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.