The High Court has upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s licence conditions for an intensive pig farm near Edgeworthstown, finding that the farm’s pig slurry was waste and that the Agency could regulate its disposal through the licence.
In a judgment delivered on 9 March 2007, Mr Justice Charleton rejected Dónal Brady’s application for judicial review. Brady sought to quash the Agency’s 1999 integrated pollution control licence and have his application reconsidered. He argued that pig slurry was a valuable fertiliser rather than waste, and that the Agency had no power to require him to monitor how other farmers used it.
The judgment said the farm produced about 30,000 cubic metres of slurry each year. Its licence required controls on land spreading, including a nutrient management plan, records of spreading, and monitoring of surface water in areas where the slurry was spread. Brady had storage capacity equivalent to his annual output and agreements with neighbouring farmers covering just under 6,000 acres, according to the judgment.
The court considered whether the slurry could fall outside the European definition of waste if it was reliably reused as fertiliser. It concluded that, given the slurry’s environmental risks and the need for special precautions, it could be treated as a product only if its lawful and correct reuse was certain and followed good agricultural practice. The court found that certainty had not been established in this case.
Brady also argued that licence conditions could expose him to criminal liability for breaches by farmers outside his control. The judge held that breach of a licence condition was not an offence of strict liability: criminal liability would require intention or recklessness. The judgment said Brady would need to follow the licence conditions and stop supplying slurry to farmers whose conduct showed they would not comply.
The court ruled that supplying the slurry to other farmers amounted to disposal of waste and an emission under the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992. It held that the Agency had power to impose the conditions, which were for environmental protection and reasonably related to the licensed activity. The licence and its conditions were lawful, and the application to quash the licence was refused.