Water damage
Service: Legal
Abstract: Expert witness in a criminal proceeding for environmental damage (freshwater pollution), Northern Italy. We have provided technical support to the law firm that assisted the Client in the proceeding, preparing a Technical Consultancy Report demonstrating the absence of a causal link between the transient exceedances of the limits of some parameters in the discharged stormwaters and the event of death of fish fauna that occurred in the stream.
Sector: Manufacturing Sector
Period: 2019
Initial Client Situation
Following the conclusions of the investigations related to a fish fauna death event in a stream, a company operating in the metal production sector was charged for having caused a significant impairment of the stream water quality due to the high concentrations of pollutants in the stormwater discharged into the stream, causing a phenomenon of death of the fish fauna.
SHELTER activities
We have provided technical support to the law firm that assisted the Client in the proceedings, preparing a Technical Consultancy report demonstrating the absence of a causal link between the transient exceedances of the limits of some parameters in the discharged stormwaters and the event of death of fish fauna that occurred in the stream.
The Technical Consultancy report has shown that:
- The alleged crimes did not exist and, in any case, were in no way related with the facts ascertained at the time of the inspection by the Authorities.
- There were no technical assessments that could correlate the fish fauna death event to the transient exceedances of the discharge limits of some parameters.
- The concentrations of pollutants found and the eco-toxicological characteristics of the substances for which transient exceedances of the discharge limits were identified, could not cause a significant and measurable impairment of the water quality of the stream.
