A RECYCLING company has been banned from pumping water off its site after the Environment Agency found it was contaminated.

Last night Armstrongs Environmental Services said it was taking the matter “extremely seriously” and insisted water had not been pumped from the site for 12 months – and it has no intention of doing so again.

The company has permission from the EA to store up to 1,000 tonnes of green waste at Pilkington’s Quarry in Horwich. It also has permission to pump water from the site.

When the EA tested surface water on the site last month it showed it had been contaminated with ammonia from decomposed green waste.

Now the Agency has told the firm that water collecting in the quarry should not be pumped out to a nearby field, because it is contaminated and could find its way into the nearby Pearl Brook and the River Douglas.

John Wallace, managing director of Armstrong Group, said: “We are taking this matter extremely seriously.

“The discharge consent in place is a legacy from the previous quarry operator. We have only discharged clean water once, 12 months ago. There is no intention of discharging water from the pond again.

“As long as there is no plan to discharge the water then there are no issues of river pollution to address.

“We would never pump water from our site without seeking approval from the necessary agencies and undertake testing.

“Therefore we can put minds at rest that there is absolutely no way the watercourse would have been contaminated.”

amanda.smith@theboltonnews.co.uk